This session is running as a privileged user box?

[Doug Ledford]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 10:53 -0700, Andrew Farris wrote:
> Doug Ledford wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 00:29 -0400, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> >> 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.
> > 
> > There are valid reasons to log in as root.  Sometimes even always log in
> > as root (think test machine you wipe out over and over again and root is
> > the only account that ever exists on the machine
> 
> If this was an install-test machine you really don't need to setup 
> configurations like 'do not show me this again' anyway.  If its meant to test 
> anything more significant than installation a normal user should be created 
> because you are not testing normal use scenarios if you're logged in as root.

Sometimes, not testing "normal use scenarios" is exactly what you want.
As a kernel developer, I don't really want to mess with broken
console-kit rules in order to test if kernel module Y actually works
(any console rules are a separate issue from the kernel module working).

> I question whether anyone knows what they are doing when logging in graphically 
> as root...

You can question it all you want, but I assure you I *do* know what I'm
doing, and I'll happily tell anyone that tells me otherwise to kindly
attend to their own affairs, kthxbye.

>   if they know what they are doing they'll be fixing any of those 
> above problems from a virtual terminal, or remotely from a normal user 
> elsewhere.  It is never necessary to login to an X session as root, and probably 
> shouldn't even be allowed.

Shouldn't even be allowed?  Boy, that's going a long ways down the road
of "I know what's best for you, so shut up and deal with it...", which
would be a big part of the reason I never liked Microsoft or Apple
OSes...let's please not go down that road.

> >> 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.
> > 
> > Hehehe, if that's how a person wants to play golf.... ;-)
> 
> Better not to be the one to caddy for this 'club' user though.

Not asking anyone to be my caddy, just for them not to deny me the right
to caddy my own game as I see fit.

-- 
Doug Ledford <dledford at redhat.com>
              GPG KeyID: CFBFF194
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford

Infiniband specific RPMs available at
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford/Infiniband

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