From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG  Mon Apr  4 21:52:22 2005
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Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 16:52:20 -0500
From: Craig Boston <craig@tobuj.gank.org>
To: ALeine <aleine@austrosearch.net>
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cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
cc: sos@DeepCore.dk
Subject: Re: ATA security commands, bug in atacontrol
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On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 09:19:19AM -0700, ALeine wrote:
> sos@DeepCore.dk wrote: 
> There are some people who would want to be able to issue ATA security
> {set,unlock,disable} password and other commands, but have no BIOS user
> interface to change any of the ATA security settings.

Um, wouldn't setting the password on a system in which the BIOS offers
no ATA security support render the system unbootable?  The BIOS would
be unable to read the boot sector without first unlocking the disk...

Since compliant BIOSes have already frozen the config by the time the OS
boots anyway, the only reason I can think of for atacontrol to have
security support would be if you're booting from some other media, i.e.
floppy, CDROM, network, USB...

It might also be somewhat useful for secondary (non-boot drives).  *BUT*
that would probably only work on machines where the BIOS doesn't freeze
all the drives on startup.

Craig