Re: EPICS Access Security

[Philip Taylor <pbt@ast.cam.ac.uk>]

On Wed, 21 Feb 1996, Deb Kerstiens wrote:
> > 
> Andy raises a really good question here.  Yes, dm can know and inform the
> user that there is a problem with access.  We haven't yet used access control
> much at LANL, so I haven't had much input from users.  I'd like some input
> from the user community as to what the needs/desires are in this arena.

Yes I certainly would like dm to indicate whether Access Security
is preventing the operation, I'm not sure I have any strong
feelings yet about the exact style in which dm should show this.

However I do feel that just the message "access denied" is completely 
insufficient. There is nothing more frustrating to a hard-pressed 
user (perhaps fault finding at the time and under pressure) to 
be told that for some unspecified reason their access is 
denied. The obvious questions they will ask is "Why?" and
"So how do I get access?".

So I feel it is important that a reason for the access denial be 
given.e.g. "Cannot write to this field from host X", "Cannot 
read this field from user Y" etc. I *think* the information 
is all there in the system to be able to find out the reason?

Philip

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Philip Taylor, Royal Greenwich Observatory, 
Madingley Road, CAMBRIDGE. CB3 0EZ. UK
Email : pbt@ast.cam.ac.uk      Phone : (UK+) (0)1223-374710
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