🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently we were trying to implement security for a mail application (Pegasus 
Mail) that uses file store.  One of the things we were attempting to accomplish was 
to create the ability of a particular user to write and create files in another users 
directory.  Unfortunately, this is not possible because of what is outlined below.  I 
hope this helps someone else.  We spent many hours thinking that we had implemented 
security incorrectly.

This is for Lantastic 7.0 and Windows95 workstations only.  This security 
implementation works well in a Windows 3.1 environment with Lantastic 7.0.

BTW, if someone knows who/how to get this to the Windows95 developers to help 
Artisoft address this problem, it would be greatly appreciated.


L. Carroll,

>I do apologize for the delay in responding to your message. We first needed 
>to verify what exactly is happening. The problem that you are experiencing has 
>nothing to do with LANtastic itself, but with the operating system (win95). 
>When a machine running WIN95 attempts to write data to the disk it first 
>attempts to complete a read of the disk for some kind of verification process.

No need to apologize, we really appreciate all the help you have provided so far.  
Artisoft has gone beyond the call of duty many times for us.  We know you as a 
company who responds to customers needs.

>Unfortunately, if you do not give READ access to the shared resource, win95 
>will not write the data. 

It is good to know that you were able to verify the same problem I was having.

>We discovered this running debug. It kept returning a file creation error until 
>we gave the resource READ access. This happens with applications under win95 
>as well. 

>The conclusion is that it is the win95 operating system itself that is 
>attempting the READ command. This has nothing to do with LANtastic. 

OK.  

What this seems to imply is that Windows95 has caused Lantastic security to be 
severly limited in its implementation.  Basically, you can keep someone out of a 
directly completely by giving them no access, or limit there ability to delete modify 
or other things but to do this they will need the ability to read that information.

This means it will be impossible to implement security in a situation where you want 
a user to be able to only Create and Write files to a directory.  For example, a mail 
application using file store.

Thanks again for all the effort that you and others have put into this particular 
problem.



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Thanks to all who have helped and will help in the future.
Mike
web@locher.alaska.net