Re: A few XF86 questions

[Brian <eith cs wisc edu>]

O.K some of you are probably going to think that I am crazy, but I have a
way for non-root users to use ppp and such.  First note that is only
acceptable for a stand alone machine where you and the people that you
trust with your life (mother, father etc...) are the only people using the
box.  What I did was make root have no password (sounds pretty crazy
huh...  Like I said only people you trust with your life use your box).
Now you can make up scripts that have:

su --command=WhateverCommandYouWant

When this script is run, the command is run under root, but the user stays
logged in as themself.  

Now if this is something that sounds like it could work for you, you may
want to think about writing up scripts for shutting down the computer,
restarting the computer etc...  

Also, you MUST have passwords enabled for all users of your computer for
at least some security.  Otherwise anyone can telnet to your machine if
they have your IP address, and if they get a username right (which isn't
very hard since your username tends to be in your email address), then
once they log in they can type su and be logged in as root (scary!!).
Note that you cannot log in directly as root from a telnet or ftp session
(so you are safe without having a root password).

If anyone out there sees any other security problem that I am not
seeing, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!


--Brian