Hi all,
Davyd Madeley has released his latest GNOME preview: http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
and it has some interesting features, such as the new fast-user switching interface resembling OS X's. I recall previous incarnations of this feature being explicitly removed from Fedora's GNOME; would that explain why as of now this feature is absent from the RPMs in -devel ?
Thanks,
-- Michel Salim http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~msalim http://the-dubois-papers.blogspot.com/
Michel Salim wrote:
Hi all,
Davyd Madeley has released his latest GNOME preview: http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
and it has some interesting features, such as the new fast-user switching interface resembling OS X's. I recall previous incarnations of this feature being explicitly removed from Fedora's GNOME; would that explain why as of now this feature is absent from the RPMs in -devel ?
Thanks,
-- Michel Salim http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~msalim http://the-dubois-papers.blogspot.com/
Anybody can tell me... is user switching enabled now in the gnome-screensaver in rawhide? In FC5Test2 it was disabled. Fast-user-switching and gnome-screensaver user switching are really great features to see.
Greetings, Marcin
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Michel Salim (michel.salim@gmail.com) said:
Davyd Madeley has released his latest GNOME preview: http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
and it has some interesting features, such as the new fast-user switching interface resembling OS X's. I recall previous incarnations of this feature being explicitly removed from Fedora's GNOME; would that explain why as of now this feature is absent from the RPMs in -devel ?
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
Bill
Bill Nottingham wrote:
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
I would think there wouldn't be a "secure" way to do this. Giving multiple users access to mounted external drives would be problematic. Things to worry about less would be video and sound devices.
Overall though I don't think flat out disabling the option is the best solution. In my mind the only option that would work would be groups, unless dyanmically changing ACLs might work. A compromise would be to add an option to enable it with a security warning. It isn't like people don't setup their desktops to auto-login knowing they are comprimising security. But overall with physical access any form of security other than encrypted everything is pretty much worthless, and encrypted everything is not the default either.
On 2/20/06, Bill Nottingham notting@redhat.com wrote:
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
Is it even possible to enumate the types problematic devices? Assuming we are talking about multiple users at the physical console.
hot-(un)pluggable devices that users have physical access certaintly share a common level of "ownership" complexity.
But internal non-hotpluggable devices would have different constraints would they not from an ownership pov?
And then of course there's crap thats in between.. items which are technically hot-pluggable but which because of the specific situation.. none of the console users can actually unplug as part of non-malicious usage. (but I guess the administrator could mark those devices in some way as special so they are treated as non-hotpluggable items)
-jef
Jeff Spaleta (jspaleta@gmail.com) said:
On 2/20/06, Bill Nottingham notting@redhat.com wrote:
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
Is it even possible to enumate the types problematic devices? Assuming we are talking about multiple users at the physical console.
Anything where ownership exists with pam_console.
Really, it's blocking on (among other things) revoke() support in the kernel.
Bill
Bill Nottingham wrote:
Michel Salim (michel.salim@gmail.com) said:
Davyd Madeley has released his latest GNOME preview: http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
and it has some interesting features, such as the new fast-user switching interface resembling OS X's. I recall previous incarnations of this feature being explicitly removed from Fedora's GNOME; would that explain why as of now this feature is absent from the RPMs in -devel ?
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
Bill
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Marcin
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On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 01:51 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Windows XP does a lot of really really ugly things that we shouldn't copy. This being one of them.
On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 16:52 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 01:51 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Windows XP does a lot of really really ugly things that we shouldn't copy. This being one of them.
I agree. User switching should not even be in Windows XP. It causes a lot of confusion with laziness being the most usual reason for using it.
Gerry Tool wrote:
On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 16:52 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 01:51 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Windows XP does a lot of really really ugly things that we shouldn't copy. This being one of them.
I agree. User switching should not even be in Windows XP. It causes a lot of confusion with laziness being the most usual reason for using it.
I find that when admin'ing a machine that the ability to tell a GUI tool that I want it to start with root rights would be handy. My current method is invike a terminal, su - in that terminal, then start the app, in background.
I know that some apps (I guess ones that are marked as being useless without root access), invoke the ~"please give root password" dialog. Is there already a nice way to start other programs (most common example for me: nmapfe and gnome-terminal) as root (or even another user) ?
DaveT.
2006/2/21, David Timms dtimms@bigpond.net.au:
Gerry Tool wrote:
On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 16:52 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 01:51 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Windows XP does a lot of really really ugly things that we shouldn't copy. This being one of them.
I agree. User switching should not even be in Windows XP. It causes a lot of confusion with laziness being the most usual reason for using it.
I find that when admin'ing a machine that the ability to tell a GUI tool that I want it to start with root rights would be handy. My current method is invike a terminal, su - in that terminal, then start the app, in background.
I know that some apps (I guess ones that are marked as being useless without root access), invoke the ~"please give root password" dialog. Is there already a nice way to start other programs (most common example for me: nmapfe and gnome-terminal) as root (or even another user) ?
DaveT.
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just use consolehelper and to mass deploy it just create an rpm package adding the consolehelper stuff for e.g. gnome-terminal calling it something like gnome-terminal-rootaccess and let it depend on gnome-terminal. I just dont see where this is different to opening a terminal and typing su -. dont even t hink it can be faster accessed etc. autologin into an environment as root isnt the way of "admining" id propose.
regards, Rudolf Kastl
Rudolf Kastl wrote:
2006/2/21, David Timms dtimms@bigpond.net.au:
Gerry Tool wrote:
I agree. User switching should not even be in Windows XP. It causes a lot of confusion with laziness being the most usual reason for using it.
I find that when admin'ing a machine that the ability to tell a GUI tool that I want it to start with root rights would be handy. My current method is invike a terminal, su - in that terminal, then start the app, in background.
I know that some apps (I guess ones that are marked as being useless without root access), invoke the ~"please give root password" dialog. Is there already a nice way to start other programs (most common example for me: nmapfe and gnome-terminal) as root (or even another user) ?
DaveT.
just use consolehelper and to mass deploy it just create an rpm package adding the consolehelper stuff
I can see the consolehelper config files, thanks very much for that info, I see now how pup/ethereal achieve this.
for e.g. gnome-terminal calling it something like gnome-terminal-rootaccess and let it depend on gnome-terminal.
I've never created an rpm before, but perhaps a generic rpm to achieve what you describe above, or a package to do what I describe below...
I just dont see where this is different to opening a terminal and typing su -. dont even t hink it can be faster accessed etc.
Perhaps there could be a panel icon for application-root-access; if you drag and drop on application icon from the menu/panel, then the ~"give me the root password" would be shown and if password success the app start with root rights.
I think that could be a fair solution, what do other people think ? Would such a method be technically impossible or extremely difficult or bad for security ?
autologin into an environment as root isnt the way of "admining" id propose.
I wasn't meaning auto login, just to avoid: 1. go to menu, find terminal (applications/accesories/terminal) 2. type su - 3. enter password 4. type the name of the app you want. (remember that the name is usually very different from what is provided in the menus, so you need to find out/know this as well).
The proposal would reduce this to: 1. drag drop icon from 1 onto the ~"give me more rights" icon. 2. enter password.
This is from an admin who finds himself doing version 1 of these steps (what feels like) hundreds of times a day. A nice quick / obvious tool as described above may be very useful to others as well...?
ps. the other common one I use is nautilus (as root), then you can use the ctrl-l location copy-paste in a terminal window, or sometimes just move files/folders or fix rights problems directly.
Jesse Keating wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 01:51 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
It is really disappointing. Windows XP has such feature since 5 years. Couldn't we provide option to disable/enable this when needed? Removing it is not a good way.
Windows XP does a lot of really really ugly things that we shouldn't copy. This being one of them.
That's why I asked about providing option to enable that feature when needed. Maybe it's ugly but under some circumstances it's really useful.
Marcin.
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On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 10:10 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
That's why I asked about providing option to enable that feature when needed. Maybe it's ugly but under some circumstances it's really useful.
The concept of the feature isn't the ugly part. What has to be done to the devices and permissions is what is ugly. Windows accomplishes it in a very ugly way that can easily lead to security or corruption issues. Linux isn't quite ready to do this in a safe / sane way.
Jesse Keating wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 10:10 +0100, Marcin Grabda wrote:
That's why I asked about providing option to enable that feature when needed. Maybe it's ugly but under some circumstances it's really useful.
The concept of the feature isn't the ugly part. What has to be done to the devices and permissions is what is ugly. Windows accomplishes it in a very ugly way that can easily lead to security or corruption issues.
Even windows does not allow this feature when in a domain environment.
Linux isn't quite ready to do this in a safe / sane way.
On 2/20/06, Bill Nottingham notting@redhat.com wrote:
Michel Salim (michel.salim@gmail.com) said:
Davyd Madeley has released his latest GNOME preview: http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-14/
and it has some interesting features, such as the new fast-user switching interface resembling OS X's. I recall previous incarnations of this feature being explicitly removed from Fedora's GNOME; would that explain why as of now this feature is absent from the RPMs in -devel ?
Yes - basically, without finding a good, solid solution to device ownership (groups aren't it), having fast user switching on is very problematic.
My naive take on this is to preserve ownership on any partitions the already-logged-in users have mounted, and to transfer PAM-managed devices without mounted partitions to the new user?
-- Michel Salim http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~msalim http://the-dubois-papers.blogspot.com/