[Info-vax] How do I make zip, unzip etc. available to all users?

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On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 07:30:52 -0800 (PST)
abrsvc via Info-vax <info-vax at rbnsn.com> wrote:

> > Live patches have been around for Unix for a while with now-at-Oracle 
> > Ksplice, and similar capabilities has been added to Linux 4.

They've been available on real UNIX (Solaris) for some time as well. I
don't know but I imagine it preceded the Linux capability by a long time.

> I'm not convinced that allowing kernel level patching is a god thing with
> a running system.

Well, it depends on how many systems you have. In the Linux world where
things fail often and scale out (somewhat) you can probably afford to take
a few boxes offline without anybody noticing. Some (all?) of the Oracle Exa
data appliances and other enterprise stuff are probably more noticeable if
they go away. It seems like being able to do everything you can without
taking the system offline would be pretty desirable.

With mainframes where most companies have only one it's essential. Part of
the 5 nines uptime is being able to fix things without taking the system
down.

> Doesn't that provide a rather large invitation to problems?

You could ask around in the Solaris world where this has been available for
a long time. I have not seen it mentioned. It has not been an issue in the
mainframe environment as far as I know either.

> How much easier would it be to install viruses at the OS level should
> this be allowed?

Presumably you're getting all your patches from the vendor through a
somewhat secure channel (https, sftp etc.) so this really shouldn't be a
problem. I have no idea how Microslop works. When I used to have Windows
boxes autoupdates were disabled at the service level. I wasn't taking any
chances. Most of the viruses target platforms teenage kids have access to.
When VMS starts running commodity Intel crapware apps on Intel crapware
hardware I think it will get a lot more attention in the virus area ;-)

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