Re: parted is ALMOST suitable
On Tue 08 Nov 2016 at 17:54:41 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> >> > 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 your users don't have access rights to the raw disks?
> Great! then (g)parted doesn't need to check anything since the kernel
> will do that already.
>
> > So I do not understand your point.
>
> The fact that it checks if the user is UID 0 is either useless (because
> the user doesn't have write access to the device anyway, as should
> usually be the case for the real physical devices connected to the
> machine) or annoying (because it doesn't give any extra security since
> the user can shoot himself in the foot with any number of other tools
> anyway).
>
> It costs extra code with at best no benefit.
A well-made couple of points. But a user being able to shoot himself
in his own foot with other tools as a way of bolstering the argument
doesn't bear close scrutiny nowadays. Perhaps a reason for updating
the bug record to clarify what the issue is?
--
Brian.
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