Re: vi stealing SYSTEM-owned permissions and ownership

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon@yandex.ru>]

Greetings, D. Boland!

>> Your main problem is that you are trying to break into native Windows
>> ACL system with Cygwin tools. And not only that, you also trying to
>> wrest native ACLs into POSIX permissions, and expect native applications to
>> work fine afterward.
>> Which can be done theoretically, but in reality is a real big headache to
>> maintain.

> You are speaking of Cygwin as if it's some kind of quick hack.

It is NOT a "quick hack". But to work across different paradigm boundaries,
you have to know, what exactly it means and how it works.

> This is not the case. Most of the tools are of the GNU software collection,
> which is high quality software. ACL is also available on other Linux
> flavours, and they don't have to "wrest" it into POSIX.

I'm NOT talking about tools provided. I tell you about inherent difference
between POSIX and Windows ACL's, short version and consequences of which I've
explained already, and you can find some more technical details in Cygwin
documentation. 

> Also, one could say that ACL is a superset of the POSIX model.

No, unfortunately, you can not. As I said, there's inherent differences.

> It uses POSIX's idea of users, groups and others, but then offers the
> posibility to add more users and groups for more elaborate schemes. The
> headache starts when one actually starts using these extra posibilities.

POSIX ACL do not use selective inheritance model, as I'm aware.

>> If you truly want to show your students their Windows systems from the command
>> line, I suggest you learn Windows command line.
>> If not very robust, it is nonetheless rich, and allow for many operations
>> normally performed from GUI, and some operations, that can not be done from
>> GUI, either without much complication or at all.
>> In the case mentioned below, the "net" tool should come in handy. As well
>> as "sc" tool.

> I could just give my students an iMac, but these are not used in IT production
> infrastructures. Windows (business/government) and Linux/Unix (ISP's) are.

You make it sound like Macs are something from a parallel universe.
Same *NIX, just more thoroughly put together. For the record: I've had a
MacBook for near a year. Wrested it all to my needs. No problem whatsoever.

> The Windows command line is frustrating to work on. For instance, their
> implementation of autocompleting with the tab-key sucks.

I'll give you a hint: http://farmanager.com/index.php?l=en

> In stead of really simplifying and improving on DOS, MS comes up with more
> weird tools like PowerShell.
> Now you have to be a programmer to use the command-line.

No need to "use command line". This is where you make a mistake. You use
command-line tools to perform specific tasks. That's it.
But if you inclined to "use command line", check out http://jpsoft.com/all-downloads/downloads.html

>> Also, forcing someone to use vi over more sane editors is a torture which no
>> one deserve.
>> 

> Haha, yes. But if my students have to administer remote production-machines,
> most of the time they have no other option. I want them to succeed where
> others fail. 

I can't imagine a situation, where I only have one way to edit the file.
Even on my web hosting, I have a choice between vi, mcedit, ed and ee.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 04.11.2013, <01:39>

Sorry for my terrible english...


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