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(mtools.info)misc flags


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General Purpose Drive Flags
===========================

   A flag can either be set to 1 (enabled) or 0 (disabled). If the
value is ommitted, it is enabled.  For example, `scsi' is equivalent to
`scsi=1'

`nolock'
     Instruct mtools to not use locking on this drive.  This is needed
     on systems with buggy locking semantics.  However, enabling this
     makes operation less safe in cases where several users may access
     the same drive at the same time.

`scsi'
     When set to 1, this option tells mtools to use raw SCSI I/O
     instead of the standard read/write calls to access the device.
     Currently, this is supported on HP/UX, Solaris and SunOs.  This is
     needed because on some architectures, such as SunOs or Solaris, PC
     media can't be accessed using the `read' and `write' syscalls,
     because the OS expects them to contain a Sun specific "disk label".

     As raw Scsi access always uses the whole device, you need to
     specify the "partition" flag in addition

     On some architectures, such as Solaris, mtools needs root
     privileges to be able to use the `scsi' option.  Thus mtools
     should be installed set uid root on Solaris if you want to access
     Zip/Jaz drives.  Thus, if the `scsi' flag is given, `privileged'
     is automatically implied, unless explicitly disabled by
     `privileged=0'

     Mtools uses its root privileges to open the device, and to issue
     the actual SCSI I/O calls.  Moreover, root privileges are only
     used for drives described in a system-wide configuration file such
     as `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf', and not for those described in
     `~/.mtoolsrc' or `$MTOOLSRC'.

`privileged'
     When set to 1, this instructs mtools to use its set-uid and set-gid
     privileges for opening the given drive.  This option is only valid
     for drives described in the system-wide configuration files (such
     as `/usr/local/etc/mtools.conf', not `~/.mtoolsrc' or
     `$MTOOLSRC').  Obviously, this option is also a no op if mtools is
     not installed setuid or setgid.  This option is implied by
     'scsi=1', but again only for drives defined in system-wide
     configuration files.  Privileged may also be set explicitely to 0,
     in order to tell mtools not to use its privileges for a given
     drive even if `scsi=1' is set.

     Mtools only needs to be installed setuid if you use the
     `privileged' or `scsi' drive variables.  If you do not use these
     options, mtools works perfectly well even when not installed
     setuid root.

`vold'
     Instructs mtools to interpret the device name as a vold identifier
     rather than as a filename.  The vold identifier is translated into
     a real filename using the `media_findname()' and
     `media_oldaliases()' functions of the `volmgt' library.  This flag
     is only available if you configured mtools with the
     `--enable-new-vold' option before compilation.

`use_xdf'
     If this is set to a non-zero value, mtools also tries to access
     this disk as an XDF disk. XDF is a high capacity format used by
     OS/2. This is off by default. Note: XDF, for more details.

`mformat_only'
     Tells mtools to use the geometry for this drive only for
     mformatting and not for filtering.

`filter'
     Tells mtools to use the geometry for this drive both for
     mformatting and filtering.

`remote'
     Tells mtools to connect to floppyd (Note: floppyd).


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