[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: I always have to log in as root!?



Robert-Jan Kuijvenhoven hat gesagt: // Robert-Jan Kuijvenhoven wrote:

> I have installed Linux and it works just fine, if I log in as root.
> When I log in as a 'normal' user a lot of thing don't work. For
> example I can't use the pon command when I am not the root. I also
> can't start X11 when I am not the root. The system tells me I have to
> be a root for this. I think this is not a good security situation.
>
> How can I change this?

root is allowed to do anything. So only root can mess up everything, too.
This is a good security situation. 

There are ways to allow normal users to do some things, e.g. starting
the ppp connection. On a debian system there is a group of users that are
allowed to dial out. This group is called "dip". You can add a user to this
group with the command adduser like this:
$ adduser username dip

Of course only root can do this ...

Regarding X there are two situations possible. If you run xdm as I would
recommend, xdm handles all logins. Only root can start or end xdm but this
is a feature, too. You can still kill the X server with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, 
but xdm will start one again. 

If you dont want to use xdm and it is not running, every user can start X 
with "startx" from the console. This should be no problem. If it is, maybe
X has not the right permissions. 
Check with:
$ ls -l /usr/bin/X11/X
-rwsr-xr-x   1 root     root         4872 Jul 22  1998 /usr/bin/X11/X
   ^ This is important!

Just set things up the way you like. 

Bye,
-- 
                                                     __    __
 Frank Barknecht           ____ ______   ____ __ trip\ \  / /wire ______
                          / __// __  /__/ __// // __  \ \/ /  __ \\  ___\	
                         / /  / ____/  / /  / // ____// /\ \\  ___\\____ \	
                        /_/  /_____/  /_/  /_//_____// /  \ \\_____\\_____\
                                                    /_/    \_\ 


Reply to: