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Re: Lightweight file viewer?



On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 10:06:47AM -0700, Vineet Kumar wrote:
> * stan (stanb@panix.com) [030521 09:07]:
> > On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 06:20:12AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > You say "view only" and "need to be writable bu the user that's
> > > runing the view".  Those look to be contradictory goals.
> > 
> > Not really.
> > 
> > The "user" in question is dedicated to the task, Taht is the task that
> > collects the data runs as user "alarms", as a daemon, and writes the
> > logfiles.
> > 
> > The same user is autologed in to a "traped" X session with no posibility of
> > starting any other task, or spawning a shell. I will autostart this viewer
> > in his .xinitrc to allow reading of these files. 
> > 
> > Make sesnse?
> 
> almost.  It sounds like your best bet will be to use the filesystem's
> permissions system to your advantage.  It's simple enough: if you don't
> want a user to be able to edit a file, make sure the user does not have
> write access to those files, and does not own those files.  Have the
> daemon run as a separate user than the one that your user logs in with.
> Create the log files with appropriate [go]+r permissions so that the
> user can see them.  Then use anything at all (gless?) to view them, and
> not worry about how the user can break out.
> 

Unfortunately, that means running the data agtherer, and the data viewer as
seperate users. Something i would prefere not to do.

In Pre X UNIX, there were sever "viewer only" tasks (less can be set up
that way, tho it is not the default", and even vi can be run in a "view
only  mode". 

I'm strugling with teh thought that we have lost this functionality.



-- 
"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety."
						-- Benjamin Franklin



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