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Re: Safe File Manager to run as root ?



On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 12:54:19PM -0400, Hall Stevenson wrote:
| > Is there such thing as a GUI File Manager that any
| > security and safety consious Debian users would
| > use, as ROOT, to manage a file system (i.e. move,
| > copy, change permissions) ?? Is it just a better
| > practice to use CLI w/ suid to make those kind of
| > changes.
| 
| If you're referring to gmc's pop-up warning box (do other file
| managers do it also ??), I wouldn't worry about it. You can do
| as much, if not more, damage at the command line as you can do
| with a GUI file manager...
| 
| Actually, in what way is gmc more "dangerous" than mc ??
| Starting up mc as root provokes no similar warning.

I've never used mc, but I did try gmc a while back.  I stopped using
gmc when I tried to _copy_ some files from a floppy.  Instead the
default drag-n-drop action is move.  Also, there was a problem writing
to the destination.  Instead of canceling the action, gmc proceeded to
remove the originals even though the copy hadn't been made.  I sitck
with the CLI now.

Also, suppose there is a bug in gmc.  Now suppose that you trigger
that bug while running as root.  And suppose that the bug is very
serious ... (filesystem corruption or something, maybe)

I think the developers are just warning you and it is your own fault
if something like that happens.

-D



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