Re: parted is ALMOST suitable

[<tomas@tuxteam.de>]

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On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 10:12:13AM +0000, Brian wrote:
> On Wed 09 Nov 2016 at 09:48:01 +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Nov 08, 2016 at 08:39:51PM +0000, Brian wrote:
> > > On Tue 08 Nov 2016 at 14:41:45 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > > 
> > > > >>>>>>> *HOWEVER* parted requires root privileges. That is not acceptable.
> > > > >>>>>>> Suggestions?
> > > > >>>>>>> TIA
> > > > > Futzing with partitions is the admin's job.
> > > > 
> > > > Could be, but it's not (g)parted's job to enforce these kinds of rules:
> > > > that's what Unix permissions (and Linux's capabilities) are for.
> > > > 
> > > > It's OK to add a warning and prompt the user to make sure he really
> > > > means to do that, but there's no point *preventing* the user from
> > > > shooting his own foot with this tool if he can do it with other
> > > > tools anyway.
> > > 
> > > Users here get no opportunity to shoot themselves or anyone else in the
> > > foot. Access to raw disks is over my dead body. So I do not understand
> > > your point.
> > 
> > C'mon. Cut the drama. Dead bodies and that.
> 
> It's a turn of phrase. Sometimes used with a touch of humour.
> 
> > As if "raw disk" were some kind of sacred stuff. In my case they are
> > simple files on disk (disk images). Shall I have to become root every
> > time I have to write a partition table to that? No. I just use fdisk.
> > 
> > It's the job of file (device) permissions to ensure that. Or are you
> > going to patch around bash's redirection operator too, to keep "users"
> > from shooting themselves in the foot by issuing
> > 
> >   echo "mumble" > /dev/sda2
> > 
> > Not really.
> 
> That gives "-bash: /dev/sda2: Permission denied" for me with a fixed
> disk. It's the same for a removable disk. The system came like that.

Hopefully. But that's not because bash checks that (as parted is).
It's because the permissions on the device file are set right!

IOW, it's not the application's job (bash or parted), it's the OS's
job (with the sysadmin's help) to check access permissions.

BTW it's very easy to fool the application itself (and this migh be
a perverse "solution" to Richard's problem). Just run gparted under
fakeroot. It won't convey you read/write permissions you don't have,
but it will fool gparted to think it's running as root:

  tomas@rasputin:~$ whoami
  tomas
  tomas@rasputin:~$ fakeroot whoami
  root
  tomas@rasputin:~$ 

So try running "fakeroot gparted" -- that might help. No need for
elevated permissions :-)

Fakeroot is in the like-named package.

Regards
- -- tomás
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