This session is running as a privileged user box?

[Jerry Williams]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-devel-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:fedora-devel-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Tom "spot" Callaway
> Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:30 PM
> To: Development discussions related to Fedora
> Subject: Re: This session is running as a privileged user box?
> 
> On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 21:58 -0600, Jerry Williams wrote:
> > I am the only user most of the time on the box and I know that you
> > should login as a normal user most of the time.
> 
> No, really, what you should do is login as a normal user _all_ of the
> time, and use sudo or su to take root access only when you really need
> it.

Hmm, I guess I need to think about why I am trying to do things by logging
in as root.

The first reason is that another account wasn't set up.

The other reason, that looks like it isn't an issue, was I wanted to run
some of the GUI tools as root, but it looks like they just ask for the root
password when run as a normal person, if they need root.

But then why does root's GUI profile have things like a browser or games or
stuff like that?  Stuff you should never run as root?

I did attend a desktop security presentation at the Summit and it seemed
pretty good to try and fix some of these things, as far as letting a user
change things like timezone without needing the root password.

> 
> What you're doing is analogous to using a loaded shotgun as a golf club,
> and what you're suggesting is that we take the safety off, because it
> interferes with your golf game.
> 
> ~spot

So shouldn't we be removing some of the lead from the shells if we can?
Like not putting a browser in roots GUI?

I am thinking the biggest reason I login as root is pretty much habit.
And that is now sounding like that is a bad habit, that I should try and
break.  So I am going to try and not login as root any more and see what
issues I run into.

Thanks!
Jerry Williams