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Re: User permissions and groups



Adam,

My advice for you, is to not do what you're thinking you should do.

I know that's not what you want to hear, nor is it a good answer to your
question, but I say this for a reason. The main reason is probably
because your unfamiliar with the concept of a true multi-user system
with a good security model.

Stop and think for a second and you'll see why they setup the machine so
you would *need* to change to root to do certain things. The concept
here, is a multi-user system. This means you do things as you, things
that only partain to you, and things that only _affect_ you. Anything
that needs to affect the "whole" system, is only to be done as root,
since these changes can seriously damage the machine, they must be done
sparingly. Also, any process started as root, such as compiling, is also
a dangerous idea, because these processes have a tendency to become
"runaway" processes. You then have to be root to kill it, and even then,
it may not die...

The design is not just for security of permissions/access, but also the
stability of the machine.

Obviously on a desktop-like Linux machine, there will be a greater need
for becoming root, since there will no doubt be more
installations/upgrades/updates done to the system. However, this is
*not* a reason to "reconfigure" your machine for a different security
scheme, merely to save time/effort.

Remember, you are a "newbie" and it won't do you too well to destroy
your machine just when you're getting comfortable in it. :)

(This was not a flame or blast on you! It was just merely advice from
experience) :)

Hope this helps!
Travis.

On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 17:09, Adam Born wrote:
> Hi y'all.  I'm a relative newbie to Linux (read about it for a year, 
> seriously moved to using it full-time about 6 weeks ago).  What are a 
> good set of changes to make to the file/group permissions to my user on 
> my system?  I know not to work as root unless necessary, but I was 
> wondering what are some good changes to make to my user in order to save 
> myself from changing to root all of the time.  I have three systems that 
> I use (a web server running Slackware 9.0, a workstation/desktop PC 
> running RedHat 9, and a development box running Slackware 9.0 at work). 
>  Do I want all of these to have access to the same files/directories? 
>  Is there good documentation about this somewhere (I've looked, but not 
> found much)?  TIA!  
> 
> Adam
> 
> 
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-- 
Travis Owens <openbook@linuxmds.com>
Linux MDs

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