Around 11:30pm on Friday, December 07, 2007 (UK time), Timothy Murphy scrawled:
> Steve Searle wrote:
>
> >> I don't like to feel that Linux is not telling me something
> >> because it doesn't think it is good for me.
> >
> > What, like hidden files?
>
> You mean, files whose names start with "."?
Yes, that's what I meant. I see them as hiding files that typically are
not needed on a day to day basis by an "ordinary" user. The same way
that the application in question hides groups an ordinary user probably
doesn't need to be in (as far as I can tell from the emails - I have
never used the application. It seems sensible to me - a sort of if you
need it, you know how to find it basis.
I do however understand your point of view, but don't agree with it over
all.
Steve
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12-07-2007, 10:43 PM
"Mikkel L. Ellertson"
Users and Groups
Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Steve Searle wrote:
>
>>> I don't like to feel that Linux is not telling me something
>>> because it doesn't think it is good for me.
>> What, like hidden files?
>
> You mean, files whose names start with "."?
> I must say, that is not one of my favourite aspects of Unix.
> I was trying to think if it was always like that?
> (I go back to Unix edition 5.)
>
> But in this case it seemed to be suggested
> that one shouldn't see the whole of /etc/group
> as "you don't need to know about that".
> I like to decide for myself what I need to know.
>
It is more a matter of the defaults being geared for what most users
are going to want to see. There is a simple checkbox in preferences
to select if you see system users and groups. So you still get to
select what information is presented to you. I am not sure If I
agree with the default, at least for Fedora, but I guess it does
make it less likely for a new user to make a mistake. Then again, I
am comfortable with the CLI tools for managing users and groups.
Mikkel
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12-07-2007, 10:44 PM
"Mikkel L. Ellertson"
Users and Groups
Frank Cox wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:49:30 -0600
> Jeff Krebs <jkrebs@tconl.com> wrote:
>
>> You have the option to ignore, or better yet, use procmail and the
>> "From:" header to directly divert "problem" emails to /dev/null.
>
> Unfortunately, that does nothing to solve the problem of mis-information being
> added to the list archives.
>
> I search the archives on a more-than-occasional basis to find out how to do
> this thing and that thing, and I'm sure I'm not alone in doing that.
>
I still like the idea of having the list server add a warning to all
of Karl's posts.
Mikkel
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12-07-2007, 10:50 PM
Michael A Peters
Users and Groups
> Why did someone invent "usermod"? And when you do a ls -l on /dev/ttyS0,
> the first serial port you notice:
>
> [root@k5di ~]# ls -al /dev/ttyS0
> crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 64 2007-12-07 04:52 /dev/ttyS0
> [root@k5di ~]#
>
> The only way I can ever use Com1 is to be root or belong to the uucp Group.
Did you ask how to do that?
I have a file called
/etc/security/console.perms.d/51-custom.perms
It contains the following:
# device classes -- these are shell-style globs
<garmin>=/dev/ttyS0
I wrote the file because I have a garmin gps that uses the serial
port, /dev/ttyS0
With that file in place, I do not need to do something dangerous like
add my user to the uucp group.
I wish there was a gui tool to set that kind of thing up, though to be
honest, there are very few device nodes for which you ever need to set
that kind of thing up.
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12-07-2007, 10:53 PM
Rick Stevens
Users and Groups
On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 23:30 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Steve Searle wrote:
>
> >> I don't like to feel that Linux is not telling me something
> >> because it doesn't think it is good for me.
> >
> > What, like hidden files?
>
> You mean, files whose names start with "."?
> I must say, that is not one of my favourite aspects of Unix.
> I was trying to think if it was always like that?
> (I go back to Unix edition 5.)
>
> But in this case it seemed to be suggested
> that one shouldn't see the whole of /etc/group
> as "you don't need to know about that".
> I like to decide for myself what I need to know.
No one's stopping you. Change the preferences. That's why they're
called "Preferences".
Most people need not play with system accounts (and can do some serious
damage if they screw them up), which is why they're hidden by default.
If one needs to muck with them, it's assumed one knows what one's doing
and will change the preferences accordingly.
Fedora (and most other distributions) set up defaults that are
appropriate for _most_ of their users. There is no way they can set
things up for _all_ users (the developers spend time writing code, not
honing their latent ESP capacities), so they permit you to tweak things
to your liking (unlike most of the crud from Redmond).
There are also some things that could be dangerous and they try to block
those. One example: the root user's .bashrc aliasing "rm" to "rm -i" so
some twit with root privileges doesn't wipe out an entire directory tree
by accident. I've seen it done with heinous consequences.
I find the alias a minor annoyance, but it's saved my arse once or twice
and with 30-odd years of managing systems, I'm hardly a tyro at Linux
(or Unix or VAX/VMS or M/VS or Pick or about 15 other operating
systems).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@internap.com -
- CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com -
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- The problem with being poor is that it takes up all of your time -
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12-07-2007, 11:02 PM
Rick Stevens
Users and Groups
On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 17:44 -0600, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Frank Cox wrote:
> > On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:49:30 -0600
> > Jeff Krebs <jkrebs@tconl.com> wrote:
> >
> >> You have the option to ignore, or better yet, use procmail and the
> >> "From:" header to directly divert "problem" emails to /dev/null.
> >
> > Unfortunately, that does nothing to solve the problem of mis-information being
> > added to the list archives.
> >
> > I search the archives on a more-than-occasional basis to find out how to do
> > this thing and that thing, and I'm sure I'm not alone in doing that.
> >
> I still like the idea of having the list server add a warning to all
> of Karl's posts.
Har! Yeah, that'd be interesting. "Warning: Taking this twit's advice
may be hazardous to your machine's health or your sanity."
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12-07-2007, 11:04 PM
Ed Greshko
Users and Groups
David L. Gehrt wrote:
> While I agree with your sentiments I worry that the postings in response
> to his nonsense may be just feeding what ever drives him to post the
> crap you identify.
I guess what I don't understand is why nobody, at least I think nobody, (I
had to read the archives since I filter out some cruft) simply answered the
question.
"User Manager" is working as designed and intended. In general, there is no
interest to view or modify system users and groups. That is nearly always
take care of by the system component that has created the user and/or group.
It is unclear why someone would find it necessary to un-check *all* of the
preferences when clearly the one saying "Hide system users and groups" would
change the display to the preference of the user.
I think most people won't need a "help" section for such an intuitive GUI.
However, if someone feels there is a need they should join the
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject.
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12-07-2007, 11:05 PM
Les Mikesell
Users and Groups
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
If you log in or su to root, the black magic permission changing where
the system guesses that a user touching the keyboard should own nearby
devices doesn't matter anyway.
What guessing? Why should it not matter who is logged into the local
console? Or are you arguing that on a normal desktop system, a
remote user should have access to things like sound, and the
built-in video?
I'm arguing that whether you have access to those devices should depend
on who you are, not where you are, just like every other unix operation
checks pre-established settings for user and group values against
pre-established settings on every file and device when opening them. It
shouldn't be determined by whether you are able to touch a certain
keyboard.
(On a server, you would probably not have sounds,
and maybe not even a video card.)
Or a keyboard.
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12-07-2007, 11:15 PM
"Mikkel L. Ellertson"
Users and Groups
Michael A Peters wrote:
>
> Did you ask how to do that?
> I have a file called
>
> /etc/security/console.perms.d/51-custom.perms
>
> It contains the following:
> # device classes -- these are shell-style globs
> <garmin>=/dev/ttyS0
>
> # permission definitions
> <console> 0600 <garmin> 0660 root.uucp
>
>
>
> I wrote the file because I have a garmin gps that uses the serial
> port, /dev/ttyS0
>
> With that file in place, I do not need to do something dangerous like
> add my user to the uucp group.
>
> I wish there was a gui tool to set that kind of thing up, though to be
> honest, there are very few device nodes for which you ever need to set
> that kind of thing up.
>
I tend to get slightly more complicated then that, because I have
more then one device that looks like a USB serial port. So I have a
udev rule to create a symlink specific to the device, and then have
console.perms trigger on the symlink instead of the device. For an
example, take a look at the udev rules that are part of the gpsd
package. I suspect something like this would work:
You would then use "<garmin>=/dev/gps*" instead of
"<garmin>=/dev/ttyS0". That way, it covers the case where you have
more then one GPS device connected.
Mikkel
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12-07-2007, 11:27 PM
Karl Larsen
Users and Groups
Michael A Peters wrote:
Why did someone invent "usermod"? And when you do a ls -l on /dev/ttyS0,
the first serial port you notice:
I wrote the file because I have a garmin gps that uses the serial
port, /dev/ttyS0
With that file in place, I do not need to do something dangerous like
add my user to the uucp group.
I wish there was a gui tool to set that kind of thing up, though to be
honest, there are very few device nodes for which you ever need to set
that kind of thing up.
Sorry. I am a stupid PHd. But if those able to use /dev/ttyS0 are
root and uucp how do any others use it?
Karl
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