in a common lab environment i don't think it would be 
  uncommon to find dual installs with NT and *ix on a given
  machine. what's one to do at 4am when the lab manager with
  root isn't around? hit the magic clicky button? that seems
  alot worse than a controlled shutdown.. 

  obviously you'd be screwing the guy whose simulation has been
  running on that box for the last six hours, but there you go.

  there may also be problematic situations in which each of the   
  previous users of the machine have conveniently backgrounded
  a bunch of navigators - the machine is effectively rendered
  useless unless you have this kind of control.

  something like this would obviously not be a default, but 
  perhaps would be a kernel option.

  i really love it on my NeXT box when i hit the "Power" button 
  on the keyboard and it takes it all down as i walk away.. 

<brook@biology.nmsu.edu> writes:

>   On Tue, Jan 18, 2000 at 03:55:08AM -0600, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
>>I understood that the "boss" in question didn't even have an account
>>(the question was how to reboot at the _login_ prompt). I imagine this
>>to be an office-type environment, as opposed to a computing shop.

>   That's correct.  Although I could give my boss a login, and it appears
>   that this might be the only solution, it seems a kludge, especially
>   since other PC unixes (oh, linux for instance,) have no problem with
>   accepting a three-finger salute to shut the machine down, configurable,
>   of course...

>   There's already hooks to get into ddb and shift virtual consoles -- why
>   not reboot the machine?  (or run arbitrary programs?)

>Wouldn't that be a serious security problem.  I'm not sure I want
>anyone with physical access to a machine to be able to reboot it into
>single user mode or run arbitrary programs!  

>Furthermore, it complete negates the possiblity of actually using the
>machine for anything other than processes with a short lifetime
>started on the console.  I couldn't rely on the presence of another
>machine on the net for long enough to run anything substantial on, for
>example, if it could be rebooted at any moment at any whim.

>Perhaps I'm missing why it is such a great idea for random people to
>be able to arbitrarily reboot a machine.

>Cheers,
>Brook


-- 

                             Colin Bradley
                             hutchison avenue software