Re: Writing to /etc/ from a "privileged" UI
On Mon, May 09, 2011 at 09:39:07AM +0200, David Paleino wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> I'm writing this mail to gather comments about a serious bug I received some
> time ago, for which I haven't yet had time to make a proper fix. The bug is
> #612918, against wicd, "Uses /etc/wicd/wireless-settings.conf as state file".
>
> My opinion is that wireless networks with some kind of configuration provided
> (say, a key, or a DNS server, or some static IP, [..]), should be saved there
> (so the bug really is: «don't uselessly save all the networks you encounter»
> -- and I already have a fix for that).
>
> The reporter's opinion is that no GUI should ever write to /etc/.
>
> However, WICD clients are run from privileged users, i.e. those in the `netdev'
> group, and are added there by root. So I think that's perfectly fine.
>
> I took a look at how NetworkManager handles that: it stores configuration using
> gconf, so it's not really comparable. I'd like to stick with files under /etc/,
> possibly.
>
> What's your opinion on this?
> I haven't searched thoroughly through the archive, but I guess there are other
> UIs run by privileged non-root users that write to /etc/?
/etc may include only _static_ configuration. What you have is variable
state which belongs in /var. It's no different from a database, or dpkg's
status data.
--
1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor:
// Never attribute to stupidity what can be
// adequately explained by malice.
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