[Tfug] Newbie Question on mounting floppies

[Harry McGregor]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Craig Smith wrote:

> I am trying to run Debian and at the moment I have
> little idea on what is going on but I will learn it.
>
> when I enter the command:
>
> mount /dev/fp0 /floppy/ -t vfat

That should read:
mount /dev/fd0 /floppy -t vfat
or
mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /floppy

> I get an error message that says mount can only be
> used by root

Mount in most cases, depending on how your fstab is setup can only be run
as root, for security reasons.  Mounting network filesystems, disk, or
hard drive partitions, is a system administration level task, and could be
a data security threat, as well as a possible security exploit.

> Question 1: Since I am connected to Cox by cable modem
> should I be concerned as logging in as root without a
> firewall? I know in Windows 2000 my firewall tells me
> that I am getting probed all the time.

Logging in as root has almost nothing to do with having a firewall, what
you are concerend about with the firewall is what ports you have open
(what services, or daemons, you are running), etc.

try an "apt-get install nmap" and then run:
nmap localhost

This will tell you what ports are currently open on your system

Now running as root, is generaly considered bad, you want to either type
"su -" to su to root, run the commands you need, and then exit back to
your normal user, or setup "sudo" so that you have rights to do certain
things as if you were root.

> When I do log in as root and use the same command as
> above, I get an error message that states:
>
> special device /dev/fp0 does not exist

See above

> Question 2: What dumb thing am I doing wrong?

			Harry
>
>
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--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org