Re: On entering a secure directory, would like warning.

[buhr@stat.wisc.edu (Kevin Buhr)]

Jameson Burt <jameson@user2.mnsinc.com> writes:
> 
> I have been told to display a warning message whenever a person enters a 
> particular, "secure", directory.  Of course, on first thought this is a 
> lame idea since people can access a directory without using "cd".

A fairly clean solution that might do what you want is to restrict
access to the directory to a particular group.  Then, force people to
run a simple setgid program that prints the warning message on stderr
and starts a shell (or, perhaps, a program specified on the command
line).  Having the shell prompt change to reflect the "secure" status
might be a nice touch here.

This has the advantages that (1) no one can access the directory
without seeing the message; and (2) you can log accesses to the
directory, if desired.  An obvious disadvantage is that it complicates
casual access to the directory; for example, if I'm running an editor
and want to get a file from the secure directory, it could be pretty
awkward.

Kevin <buhr@stat.wisc.edu>


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