Re: Lack of transparency of automatic actions

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 01:32:42AM +0200, Hendrik Sattler wrote:
> > /etc/fstab: if something is marked "user", then a user can mount it.
> > You can also look at the permissions of the entry in /dev to see if a
> > user can access it directly.
> 
> That is still the case
> 
> > Now, apparently, if a user is in the plugdev group, then that user could
> > mount it even if it appears nowhere in fstab and even if the user
> > doesn't have access to the /dev entry.  But this isn't documented
> > anywhere obvious, certainly.  It should be in big capital letters
> > somewhere.
> 
> No, he can only mount it if it is marked as a removable device _and_ if the 
> device file has the proper permissions for the user

My own experience suggests that this is not the case.  I have never made
my user have permissions for the SCSI devices that are used when I plug
in my iPod, but there is KDE offering to (and succeeding to) mount it
just the same.

So no, that is not still the case.

> > things specified in /etc/network/interfaces.  So I can't tell it to run
> > an iwpriv command on my wireless card before scanning for networks.
> 
> "man NetworkManagerDispatcher" looks promising

To some degree.  But it still doesn't really do as much as the GUI tools
do, even after hacking.

> Good question. The concept for a cli like this would need many thoughts, 
> though. A GUI makes that a bit easier.

Well, one could easily enough forgo the notification of status change
but support commands to query and change the status -- just like
ifconfig, ifup, and ifdown do.  Then all you need is a way to store wifi
configs and that should do it.

> > restrict that?
> 
> A user is a member of group netdev or not. Management goes with d-bus 
> configuration files.

OK, but this is not documented in any obvious place.

This flies in the face of traditional Unix practice, so it is especially
important to make a big fat notice about it.

Also, what is the first-time Debian user to do?  How does this person
learn about the need to add someone to netdev?

-- John