(It seems) a permission problem with a CD/DVD recorder

crisostomo_enrico · 12-08-2007, 09:16 AM

Hi.

I already wrote a post about this some time ago and I haven't yet found a solution. I have an external USB DVD recorder which I only plug when I need it. I plug it in and my user sees it (cdrw -l). I seldom reboot my machine and sometimes when I plug the DVD recorder my user cannot see it, but if I cdrw -l with root, the device is there and functional. I couldn't troubleshoot this and the only solution was... rebooting. Sometimes, though, reboot is not enough and I must use it as root, which is not a big problem, but it's pretty annoying.

The system is always the same, a vanilla Solaris Ex. Dev. Ed. 09/07, and no additional software was installed.

Can you suggest how I can troubleshoot this?

Thanks,
Enrico.

jlliagre · 12-08-2007, 10:19 AM

Have you removed cdrw root's sticky bit ?

crisostomo_enrico · 12-08-2007, 11:27 AM

No jlliagre! Indeed ls -al /usr/bin/cdrw shows

Code:

-rwsr-xr-x   1 root     bin        75056 Aug 25 08:58 /usr/bin/cdrw

jlliagre · 12-08-2007, 03:41 PM

Is AUTHS_GRANTED set to solaris.device.cdrw in /etc/security/policy.conf ?

crisostomo_enrico · 12-08-2007, 06:21 PM

Hi jlliagre.

Code:

enrico@suncarol:~$ grep AUTHS_GRANTED /etc/security/policy.conf
AUTHS_GRANTED=solaris.device.cdrw

jlliagre · 12-09-2007, 01:00 AM

Are your users running bash as their login shell ?

crisostomo_enrico · 12-09-2007, 07:10 AM

Not everyone but the users which uses the DVD writer unit, yes.

jlliagre · 12-09-2007, 07:33 AM

Switch them to ksh, have them log in again and see if the problem persists.

I have seen in the past using bash breaking RBAC features.

crisostomo_enrico · 12-09-2007, 07:50 AM

Funny jlliagre!

I just tried to change an user shell to ksh the DVD writer indeed appeared. Maybe it's coincidence, but yesterday night the problem persisted and could not reboot in that moment so I'd expect the problem to persist today. Good.

The funny thing is that just after the recorder appeared in that ksh, all the other bashes started to see it too! The important thing is that ksh seems to have solved the issue.

I'll continue monitoring this and let you know.

Thanks,
Enrico.

crisostomo_enrico · 12-09-2007, 04:44 PM

I don't know if I claimed victory too early. My user's shell is now ksh and:

Code:

u@h:w$ cdrw -l
Looking for CD devices...
Volume manager is not running.
Please start volume manager or run cdrw as root to access all devices.
# cdrw -l
Looking for CD devices...
    Node                   Connected Device                Device type
----------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------
 /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2   | LITE-ON  DVD SHD-16P1S    GS04 | CD Reader
u@h:w$ svcs -a | grep vol
online         Dec_07   svc:/system/filesystem/rmvolmgr:default

The funny thing is that this device is the internal DVD reader of the workstation, so the problem seems deeper than I thought.

Enrico.