Re: [Usability] Re: Button ordering

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 05Nov2001 04:01AM (-0500), Alan Cox wrote:
> > There is really no magic here, we could implement something similar
> > using PAM, CORBA and a bit of UI gadgetry.
> > 
> > 
> > But since no one is really running blocks of code in the same process
> > with priveleges, the number of restricted tasks you can let users
> > perform with authorization is limited by how much you are willing to
> > split your program into a GUI front end and a back end process that
> > does the real work.
> 
> The big issue is doing the authentication _first_. Thats what
> userhelper does for you, and does as far as we know safely - including an
> unpriviledged front end.

I'm not sure what you mean. I think running whole GUI applications as
root is not the best solution both for security reasons and because it
doesn't integrate priveleged functions where the user needs them,
which is often integrated into the UI of an unpriveleged program
 
> Not that this helps a lot in the volumes case, the volume id is short global
> and ascii. The user naming is likely to be longer, per user and utf8

Whether it should be per user is somewhat debatable. But I am pretty
sure it should be stored on the volume because that's essential for
removable media. Storing it in a special file in the root directory or
what have you may still need priveleged access.

 - Maciej