hfsutils

tools for reading and writing Macintosh HFS volumes

Copyright (C) 1996-1998 Robert Leslie

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NOTES ON THIS RELEASE

This release uses GNU autoconf to automatically configure the software for installation and use on your system. This means you should not have to modify any files by hand to get the software to compile -- if you do, please let the author know so it can be fixed.

For general installation instructions, please read the INSTALL file.

There are a few special options you can give the configure program that you should know about:

    --with-tcl            build the Tcl/Tk components
    --with-tk             build the Tk-based X interface `xhfs`
    --disable-cli         do not build or install the command-line utils
    --enable-devlibs      enable installation of the developer libraries

To build the Tcl tools hfssh and hfs, you must use --with-tcl. To build the X interface xhfs, you must use --with-tcl --with-tk.

In order to build the Tcl tools you must have Tcl 7.6 or newer already installed on your system. To build the X interface, you must have Tk 4.2 or newer installed as well.

If configure is unable to locate your Tcl or Tk installation, you will have to give it a hint. It looks for the files tclConfig.sh and tkConfig.sh (respectively) which contain all the details about your configuration; these files were created when Tcl/Tk was installed on your system.

To help configure find these files, you can specify a directory name on the command line. For example:

    ./configure --with-tcl=/usr/share/tcl --with-tk=/usr/share/tk

When in doubt, wait and see if configure complains.

By default, the command-line utilities (hmount, hls, hcopy, etc.) are always built and installed. If you don't want them, use --disable-cli.

If you want to install the developer libraries (libhfs.a, librsrc.a, and associated header files) as well as the programs, use --enable-devlibs. The libraries are not installed by default.

The INSTALL file contains the rest of the details you will need to compile and install the software. Please read it!

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NOTES ON "SETUID" INSTALLATION

Although the author has made some effort to make the programs in this package somewhat setuid-safe, none are intended to be installed in such a manner, and you do so at your own risk!

Specifically, installing the programs setuid root is a bad idea, as it will allow anyone to attempt to open (or format) any file as an HFS volume, disregarding the normal UNIX file permission checks.

A better idea is to modify the permissions on the necessary device files to allow access to appropriate users. For example, if you make your floppy device group-writable to a special group of floppy users, then only those users will be able to access an inserted floppy disk and nothing needs to be made setuid.

Here is an example:

 % ls -l /dev/fd0 /usr/local/bin/xhfs
 brw-rw----   1 root     floppy     2,   0 Sep 17 13:51 /dev/fd0
 -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     staff      339874 Jan 17 20:18 /usr/local/bin/xhfs

 % grep floppy /etc/group
 floppy:*:25:rob,thigpen

This configuration permits users rob and thigpen read/write access to the floppy device, without needing to make any programs setuid.

Another possibility is to make some of the programs in this package setgid (NOT setuid) to a similar group which has access to the necessary devices. This avoids the need to add specific users to a group, since it allows anyone to access the devices using the utilities, while still maintaining the integrity of the data on the devices since they are not world-writable. (A world-writable device lends itself to the possibility that someone may corrupt some portion of it by other means and render an HFS volume unusable, whereas limiting access only through the utilities means the volume is unlikely to be corrupted under normal usage -- although note that since HFS itself does not provide any file permission structure, anyone may still modify the HFS volume in any way. The only protection here is that the modifications must be made in an HFS-compatible way, so that the possibility of corruption is reduced.)

Here is another example:

 % ls -l /dev/fd0 /usr/local/bin/xhfs
 brw-rw----   1 root     floppy     2,   0 Sep 17 13:51 /dev/fd0
 -rwxr-sr-x   1 root     floppy     339874 Jan 17 20:18 /usr/local/bin/xhfs

 % grep floppy /etc/group
 floppy:*:25:

In this case, only setgid floppy programs (such as /usr/local/bin/xhfs) are permitted access to the floppy device.

To summarize: it is suggested that the utilities NOT be installed setuid or setgid. It is possible to install the utilities setgid as described above, but it is NOT recommended that the utilities be installed setuid root under any circumstances.

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CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

Please see the COPYRIGHT file for copyright and warranty information.

Send comments, bug reports, suggestions, patches, etc. to:

• Robert Leslie rob@mars.org

See also the old HFS Utilities home page on the Web:

• http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/hfs/

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