Nekonomicon - Accessing BIOS settings on an O2

kokoboi
From Bulgaria
Who joined Sept. 8, 2006, 4:44 p.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 12:41 a.m...

Give us some more information. I'm pretty sure you can have what you need only with root password.

"Look on wife/girlfriends/parents face when you drag all this stuff(IRIS CRIMSON, ONYX, ONYX2, ORIGIN 2000 ,etc.) home.... Priceless!

"

Motorla Series 900(MVME197LE) , Atari TT030, Motorola Powerstack

hamei
From over the rainbow
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 1:54 a.m...

The radar guy wrote: It's for this reason that I need an editing tool, running from CD, to view/edit the contents of the HD without starting IRIX.

Could they have made some files user-viewable but not root-viewable ? So you can only access them as that (semi-secret) user ?

Anyway, first I would try working with a copy of the disk rather than the real thing. Second, there is a utility called "Raise Data Recovery" that is intended to rescue deleted files from an xfs file system. That might give you slightly lower-level access to what's on the disk. It's not very expensive and they have a free limited version that might do everything you want.

If nothing else works, that might be worth a try.

--
"I am not a crook !" (Dick Nixon)

robespierre
From Boston
Who joined Sept. 12, 2011, 2:28 p.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 2:53 a.m...

IRIX has NCSC B2 features under its MAC controls, so simply being root does not grant access to everything.
See clearance(4) and dominance(5).

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 2:27 p.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 2:09 p.m...

robespierre wrote: IRIX has NCSC B2 features under its MAC controls, so simply being root does not grant access to everything.
See clearance(4) and dominance(5).

Ugh!

sounds thorny...

What document "clearance(4) and dominance(5)" are referred to?
Okay, it's my boss who sets my agenda, as soon as she allows me some breath, I will investigate further!

For the time being, THANK YOU SO MUCH to you all! :roll:

"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

Black Cardinal
From Albany, OR USA
Who joined Sept. 25, 2009, 10:40 a.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 2:31 p.m...

Robespierre is referring to the Unix man pages. Try:

Code: Select all


$ man 4 clearance

and

Code: Select all


$ man 5 dominance

from a shell prompt on the system.

They're also available online:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/p_man/cat4/clearance.z

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/p_man/cat5/dominance.z

There's an entire guide on this topic, which may or may not be useful:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/browse.cgi?coll=0650&db=bks&cmd=toc&pth=/SGI_Admin/TCMW_AG

4x400MHz R12K Onyx2 IR2, 5GB RAM
:1600SW:

R10K Indigo2 MaxIMPACT, 4 TRAMS, 768MB RAM, 2x9GB HD, CD-ROM, Phobos G160
Black Cardinal

miod
From Orgerus (France)
Who joined Oct. 9, 2009, 2:44 a.m.

Wrote the following at Feb. 28, 2013, 11:59 p.m...

The radar guy wrote: About the privileges of the root user, I do have the credentials to access as the root user, and our maintenance technicians too, but they told me that, even in this way, there are some files and menus which stay locked out.

Does this application use its own set of login credentials? If so, it would not be surprising that some features are only made available to specific maintainence users. All you'll need is to figure out how their user database is stored, and then, as root, you should be able to alter it.

R4000

R4400

R8000

R10000

R4000PC

R4000SC

R4600

R5000SC

R5000

RM7000

2xR10000

R12000

2xR12000

-

2x2xR10000 :Fuel:

R16000

4xR16000

among more than 150 machines : Apollo, Data General, Digital, HP, IBM, MIPS before SGI , Motorola, NeXT, SGI, Solbourne, Sun...

smj
From Berkeley, CA, USA, NA, Earth, Sol
Who joined Nov. 12, 2007, 7:54 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 1, 2013, 9:17 p.m...

miod wrote: Does this application use its own set of login credentials? If so, it would not be surprising that some features are only made available to specific maintainence users. All you'll need is to figure out how their user database is stored, and then, as root, you should be able to alter it.

^=== This. Sounds like in-application authorization issues when he mentions things being "locked out."

I remember a thread with radar guy a couple years ago about some hardware issues, might have been around root access. (Too lazy to search.) Anyway I think you really ought to clone that hard drive before you tinker with anything like this. Especially if you're operating slightly beyond your remit here - the higher-ups might get very testy if something goes wrong, even if they're too apathetic to care beforehand.

Check here for procedures: Clone System Disk
(Check the "See Also" section too.)

Then?

... Now?

-

+MLA

... Other: DEC :BA213:

Sun , DG AViiON , NeXT :Cube:

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 2:27 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 2, 2013, 3:26 a.m...

Especially if you're operating slightly beyond your remit here - the higher-ups might get very testy if something goes wrong, even if they're too apathetic to care beforehand.

Holy words!!! :mrgreen:

"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

smj
From Berkeley, CA, USA, NA, Earth, Sol
Who joined Nov. 12, 2007, 7:54 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 2, 2013, 4:52 p.m...

By the way - I support the notion of doing the right thing even when the bureaucracy is stacked against it, if you're up for it. Just want to make sure you don't wind up getting slammed over it if things go pear shaped...

Then?

... Now?

-

+MLA

... Other: DEC :BA213:

Sun , DG AViiON , NeXT :Cube:

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 2, 2013, 5:32 p.m...

I would think that in order to lock files away from access by root the application must have had to rootkit the box! :shock:

Is this application commercially available or is it something your organization paid to have developed for you?

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 1:27 p.m.
and authored 28 notes

Wrote the following at March 3, 2013, 5:57 a.m...

vishnu wrote:

Is this application commercially available or is it something your organization paid to have developed for you?

It's not commercially available, it's an ATC radar...

_________________
"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 1:27 p.m.
and authored 28 notes

Wrote the following at March 3, 2013, 5:59 a.m...

miod wrote:

Does this application use its own set of login credentials? If so, it would not be surprising that some features are only made available to specific maintainence users. All you'll need is to figure out how their user database is stored, and then, as root, you should be able to alter it.

Tha's exactly what I had in mind... :mrgreen:

_________________
"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 1:27 p.m.
and authored 28 notes

Wrote the following at March 3, 2013, 6:01 a.m...

smj wrote:

By the way - I support the notion of doing the right thing even when the bureaucracy is stacked against it, if you're up for it. Just want to make sure you don't wind up getting slammed over it if things go pear shaped...

You can be 100% sure I won't stumble upon it... 8-)

_________________
"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

mapesdhs
Who joined Nov. 10, 2003, 4:17 p.m.
and authored 2169 notes

Wrote the following at March 4, 2013, 10:51 a.m...

Just pondering... if root access doesn't grant access to all files, how would a disk clone be done that does include all the files on the disk?
Using dd I suppose, yes?

To the OP, do you have access to an identical model of SCSI disk? That would make a dd copy easier.

Ian.

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thijsatteiltje
Who joined March 28, 2012, 10:07 p.m.
and authored 14 notes

Wrote the following at March 6, 2013, 2:55 a.m...

Hi,

since i read this post while i was playing with my own O2 and was able to test things out, let me be (un)helpfull.

there is in fact a sort of live cd for sgi, the Gentoo Mips live cd. just google for it. it works great on my O2. just hit esc for maintenance and install from cd.

the only problem is is that it won't mount the xfs disks, wich makes it completly useless for your problem.
i seem to remember that i once mounted an xfs disk on a pc, booting from a recent knoppix live cd. but i could be mistaken.

this post has some info about mounting xfs under linux.
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-24 ... 39fef8376b

so, my post is not very helpfull i'm afraid, although the gentoo boot cd might give you some info about the system.
but, since i'm swapping disks in my O2 as well i'd be mo than happy to try stuff out for you.

or, if you happen to be close to wellington, new zealand you should stop by and we could try to tackle this dragon together :-)

)

my suggestion to get root (as was probably mentioned before)
- attach te disk to another sgi machine as second disk adn reset root passwd
- attach disk to pc, boot knoppix and reset passwd
- i'm not sure what the dd would acomplish that you would not get from physically moving the disk?

thijs

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Old friends, lost along the way:

thijsatteiltje
Who joined March 28, 2012, 10:07 p.m.
and authored 14 notes

Wrote the following at March 6, 2013, 2:58 a.m...

correct my if i'm wrong but i think you can do dd disk cloning to a different sized disk, as long as it's equal or larger size and the drive parameters match more or less? i'm sure i have done this before. you do end up with a disk that is the same size as the original.

(still not sure how this would help OP)

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Old friends, lost along the way:

The radar guy
Who joined April 6, 2011, 1:27 p.m.
and authored 28 notes

Wrote the following at March 6, 2013, 3:05 a.m...

Thank you to everybody, you folks are just GREAT besides being so kind!

Unfortunately, my boss has put me on another task for the moment, so I won't be able to get on the problem until she says so...

just a matter of time... :roll:

_________________
"Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity." (Richard Nixon)

SGI: Hardware

Accessing BIOS settings on an O2 - Page 2