Re: Re: the audio group

[Floris <jkfloris@dds.nl>]

Op Mon, 18 Aug 2014 15:52:34 +0200 schreef Steve McIntyre  
<steve@einval.com>:

> On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 03:24:50PM +0200, Floris wrote:
> > > which is fine.....
> > >
> > > But what if people decide to later not use logind/systemd? In what
> > > does it hurt that the first created user is *also* added to the audio
> > > group?
> >
> > When a user is added to the audio group. He will always see all sound
> > devices, even when logind tries to hide the device from the
> > user. e.g. in a multi seat setting, an user on seat0 can control the
> > sound devices from another user on seat1.
>
> And if we ignore the multi-seat stuff (which is going to be used by a
> *tiny* minority of users) there is no down-side.
>
> > Especially now that we go to systemd as the default init system, I
> > think it is wise to respect the systemd ACL settings. So we don't get
> > unexpected behaviors.
>
> There are still likely going to be vastly more non-systemd users than
> multi-seat users.

how about users who will login remotely? They also have full access to
all the audio devices, even when they don't able to hear the music,
because the speaker is on the other side of the world.

But the main issue is, having two systems (groups and ACL)
that control access rights for the same device give inconsistent behavior.
A user can be in the audio group for sound, he doesn't have to be a
member of lpadmin to use his printer. The cdrom group is only for
non-out-of-the-box cd/ dvd devices etc.

In the near future (systemd 215) [1] the need to be part of a group for a  
normal
user will even be less important. So maybe we leave the situation for
now and rethink about it in some time.

thanks,

floris

[1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/stateless.html