Re: [Pan-users] Command line use; download of nzb files does not stop

[Rhialto]

(sorry, getting more and more off-topic..)

On Mon 07 Nov 2011 at 10:21:52 +0000, James Hawtin wrote:
> Rhialto wrote:
> >welllll... once upon a time, I used the hex memory editor in the
> >firmware / boot PROM of Sun 3 workstations at the university to change
> >the user id number of my shell. To that of the system administrator, of
> >course. He didn't like that, when I told him, but there was little he
> >could do to prevent it, either.
> >
> >-Olaf.
> Except of course setting a prom password, still very impressed by
> that hack though.

Yes, but that version of the firmware didn't have that feature yet. It
would take several months before the machines could be updated, or
before a new version would be available, or somesuch.

It wasn't too difficult, if you found "curproc" by using adb (the
machine language debugger) on the kernel file, and disassembling the
"getuid()" system call to get from curproc to the actual location of the
userid. Then you'd put your shell in some loop so it would be definitely
running, and you could use the keys to break into the PROM monitor
(L1-A, I seem to remember?) and edit the memory.

-Olaf.
-- 
___ Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert  -- There's no point being grown-up if you 
\X/ rhialto/at/xs4all.nl    -- can't be childish sometimes. -The 4th Doctor