Re: home directory permissions

["Gary Hennigan" <glhenni@sandia.gov>]

"Charlie Grosvenor" <charlie@thegrosvenors.fsnet.co.uk> writes:
>     I have just used the command adduser to add some users to my system. I
> have noticed that each user added has read rights to other users home
> directory. Why is this? how can i stop adduser from creating home
> directories with these permissions?

On most of the systems I've ever administered that was the desired
permission. Maybe just historical, but I can tell stories all day
about users wanting to access each others directories and weren't able
to because they had set there root directory permission to 700.

Anyway, you were either asked whether the default should be to have
home directories system-wide readable or you've set you're priority to
a value high enough that it used the default when you installed
adduser. You can reconfigure it like:

        dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low adduser

and answer "No" to the question "Do you want system wide readable home
directories?".

This assumes you're running "testing" or "unstable". I don't remember
if this was configurable via dpkg-reconfigure in potato.

Gary