Re: [coldsync-hackers] modem sync-multiple palms

[Andrew Arensburger <arensb+CShackers@ooblick.com>]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, John Joseph Roets wrote:
> I've written some fairly proprietary conduits for use with ColdSync, and am very
> pleased with its simplicity.

	Glad to hear that!

> I need multiple Palms (a full company's) to be able to dial in to a modem, and
> sync via the ColdSync daemon process [-md].
>
> My first step was configuring the daemon process via SERIAL.  I have this
> working.
> I am wondering if the only way to configure for dial-up (modem) hotsync is via
> inetd???
> Or, is there any possibility of using mgetty, which could redirect the login to
> ColdSync?
> Or, must the palms connect via mgetty, and then do a network hotsync via inetd?

	In daemon mode, if you specify the device as "-", ColdSync will
use stdin as the sync device. Thus, you should be able to set up your
favorite daemon to answer the phone, then run
		coldsync -t serial -md -

	The other important aspect of daemon mode is that it setuid()s to
the appropriate user, which has security consequences.
	If your modem daemon is running as root when it runs ColdSync,
everything should be okay.
	If your modem daemon is running as, say, "daemon", but you want
ColdSync to run as the user who just dialed in, then you'll need to
install it setuid root. You'll probably want to install it with
permissions 4550, owned by user root and some group that only "daemon" is
member of.
	The other possibility is to have ColdSync run as user "daemon".
This is also okay, since if user joebob calls setuid(joebob), the setuid()
call will succeed. The only problem with this is that ColdSync will only
have access to those files that "daemon" has access to.
	But this is basic security stuff, which you probably knew already.

> I apologize if I've mis-read something, or if there is more documentation on
> this than I've been able to find.  I've scoured the net looking for the answers
> to this/these questions.

	I believe you're exploring somewhat new ground, so there isn't a
lot of documentation on how to do this. By the same token, expect to run
into a fair number of bugs, since this stuff hasn't been extensively
tested in real life.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      Actually, these _do_ represent the
arensb@ooblick.com                      opinions of ooblick.com!
                        Generic Tagline V 6.01


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