Re: Operator, Information, give me geom.ctl on the line

On Wed, Jul 29, 2026 at 12:08 PM Rodney W. Grimes <
freebsd-rwg@gndrsh.dnsmgr.net> wrote:

> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 3:37?PM Bob Bishop <rb@gid.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > > On 28 Jul 2026, at 20:57, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > [?]
> > > > All the way back to 386BSD's /etc/MAKEDEV script, and probably prior
> to
> > > > that, group operator  [etc]
> > >
> > > I suspect this may originate with UTS on IBM mainframes in the early
> 80s.
> > >
> >
> > The operator stuff entered BSD in 4.3BSD. It wasn't in 4.2BSD or earlier
> > MAKEDEV or similar scripts.
>
> Though it may not of appeared in MAKEDEV I am pretty sure the operator
> concept predates 4.3 and possibly even 4.2.  The basic concept when
> it first came out is by having the raw disks devices and raw tape
> devices owned by a special group that group of users could run
> dump/rdump to backup machines to mag tape.
>

The devices weren't owned by operator until 4.3BSD. I've confirmed this
with MAKEDEV
on the 4.2BSD system and the vcs logs.

However, you're right. In 4BSD there is an operator group. And there's some
operations
that notify the operator when things like tapes were ready. 3BSD doesn't
seem to have it,

Warner


> > Unsurprisingly, it's not in 7th edition, nor System III nor 32V.
>
> I believe it would work on 7th edition if you had dump(8).  The
> concept itself would defanitly work and one could use dd to
> image a disk :-)
>
> >
> > It appears to have been added in
> >
> > Revision *18173*
> > <https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg?view=revision&revision=18173> - (view
> > <
> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/etc/etc.vax/MAKEDEV?revision=18173&view=markup
> >)
> > (download
> > <
> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/etc/etc.vax/MAKEDEV?revision=18173&view=co
> >)
> > (annotate
> > <https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/etc/etc.vax/MAKEDEV?annotate=18173>) -
> [select
> > for diffs]
> > <
> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/etc/etc.vax/MAKEDEV?view=log&r1=18173&log_pagestart=0
> >
> > Modified *Fri Mar 1 16:43:33 1985 UTC* (41 years, 5 months ago) by
> *ralph*
> > File length: 6627 byte(s)
> > Diff to previous 14082
> > <https://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/etc/etc.vax/MAKEDEV?r1=14082&r2=18173>
>
> MAKEDEV was always way behind what was actually being used by people
> in the wild.
>
> >
> > added klog in standard. changed disks to be mode 640 root operator.
> >
> >
> > between 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD. There's no indication where it came from, or
> if
> > it was inspired
> > by something else. I don't have good access to UTS sources or systems to
> > check on other
> > than the V7 port.
>
> Possibly inspired by many things, just about every OS in popular use
> in the early 80's had a concept of system operators, and those people
> had usually physical access to the equipment and needed logical access
> to be able to do things like  backups, restores, account creation, etc.
>
> Giving them root or system (VMS) access was considered to risky.
> >
> > Warner
> >
> >
> > > > Poul-Henning
> > > >
> > > > (Who makes absolutely no apologies for the Subject line.)
> > >
> > > :-)
> > >
> > > > --
> > > > Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> > > > phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> > > > FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
> > > > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
> > > incompetence.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Bob Bishop       t: +44 (0)118 940 1243
> > > rb@gid.co.uk     m: +44 (0)783 626 4518
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
> --
> Rod Grimes
> rgrimes@freebsd.org
>