Level 4
Illustrated
Guide
Level 4
Illustrated
Guide
The copying has taken place, accomplished in the same way as any other copying operation done using the Desktop. This illustrates a couple of very important differences between the Level 4 server and the earlier Levels 2 and 3. The first is that the station running the server can be used for file operations to the server storage area. In Level 2 or 3, to copy, delete or carry out other file management operations, it is necessary to log on to the file server from a user workstation as it is not possible to access the server partition from the file server whilst the server code is running. The second difference is that there is a much reduced level of security on the Level 4 file server, because the user data is not stored in a separate disc partition. Since the user areas are simply a specified location on a filing system available on the machine which runs the server, anybody could switch on the machine and view or destroy users' private data. This could even happen whilst the file server is running. When you think of the measures which need to be taken to break into a FileStore or MDFS without knowing one of the system privileged users' passwords, this certainly seems to have been a bit of an oversight at Acorn to have committed such a security lapse.