🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1185@lll-lcc.aRpA> longstaf@lll-lcc.aRpA (Thomas A Longstaff) writes:
>One of the components we are considering is a Kinetics
>fastpath to connect our appletalk to another appletalk at a remote
>location on the net.  We are currently using TOPS for our software.
>Now for the questions.
>
>1.	Is this possible?  Has anyone done this?  After talking to
>Centram and Kinetics I get a lot of conflicting and confusing
>information about "maybe" and "depends on the other guy" type of talk.
>If it is not possible to use TOPS through fastpath boxes, how about
>appleshare?  

I don't have extensive experience with this, but I did do the experiment.
Yes, it is possible.  The version of TOPS which I tried (Sept, 1986)
doesn't deal with zones; you have to be in the same zone as the machine
you want to talk to.  Appleshare and LaserWriter don't have this problem.

>2.	Assuming the answer to 1. is yes, what's to keep anyone else
>with a fastpath from accessing our files and laserwritters?

with a fastpath ***and access to your ethernet***, nothing.  This is
not an uncommon problem.  If you want to protect the servers and
laserwriters from unauthorized use, you gotta password them.
The laserwriter has a password, too.  You set it with code like:

   0 serverdict begin exitserver
   0 1234567 setpassword {(Password set OK)}{(Password not set)}ifelse print

where zero is the old (default) password, and 1234567 is the new one.
Then you have to edit the laserwriter file in your system folder.
Use FEdit and search for 0000000.  It should be followed by a
serverdict begin exitserver.  Change the zeroes to your new password.
Distribute the modified laserwriter file to everyone authorized to
use the laserwriter.

Not only is this an unsupported royal pain, but it only keeps
unauthorized people from initializing the laserwriter; once it has
been initialized, anyone can use it.
Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   rubenstein@harvard.harvard.edu       MCIMail:    CSC