Re: About the login shell
On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 01:20:59AM +0200, Moritz Schulte wrote:
> Let me describe my view like this: when I ask a company to build a
> house for me, I simply expect the doors to have locks, to offer at
> least some kind of protection.
Well, I guess we could argue hours about this :) Like, I could compare your
desire to not have a login shell by default with a scenario where you ask
for a door in the house, but only holes instead windows :)
> > So, it would make remote access more secure without inconveniencing
> > the local access.
>
> What exactly do you mean with "inconveniencing"? I mean, I use the
> login shell for exactly one purpose: to type "login". When I want to
> work with the system, I login, of course. Then I have my real working
> environment, which is way more convenient then being the user number
> -1 in the system. Therefore a login prompt is for me even more
> convenient, since I don't have to type "login"...
Well, if I have a guest, I can simply tell him to use the computer, without
creating an account first.
Don't get me wrong either. The login shell is far from perfect. Much of
the policy what is accessible from it (everything world readable by default?
or by default nothing?) is undetermined. The idea is to have a reasonable
guest account with it. This means that it gives the same access to it as a
normal user account, or maybe less. We don't know.
Compare this with the other popular operating system, where you don't have a
login at all by default, you are just dropped into the one standard
desktop.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/
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