[Info-vax] Orphaned processes on OpenVMS

[Bob Koehler]

In article <irm7e4$u9p$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> 
> Interesting. So you (or anyone) is allowed to do I/O to an unmounted 
> disk? That would (to me) seem like a weird thing. So when is there ever 
> a point for foreign mounted disks in VMS?

   You can set the device protection so that not just anyone can mess
   with an unmounted disk.  I think this came out in 6.0 and the
   default protection reserves such actions to privileged users.

   Also, INITIALIZE is likely to check for a protected volume before
   proceeding for an unpriviledged user.  I know it does for tapes.

   Mounting disks foreign allows the user to access the raw disk blocks
   without a file system.  There can be a variety of reasons for this,
   but the one most system managers run into is the target of cloning
   disks with backup/image.
   
   Having not tried it, I think accessing the blocks without mounting
   foreign may be limited to INITIALIZE.  Or you may have to really dig
   deep into the disk I/O user's guide and understand things like
   IO$_PACKACK.