Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 21:14:25 -0800 From: Jason Wells <jcwells@u.washington.edu> To: Michael.Alwan.alwan@rma.edu Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: group and user confusion Message-ID: <331D0131.2D61@u.washington.edu> References: <XFMail.970304224031.Michael Alwan alwan@rma.edu>
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Michael.Alwan.alwan@rma.edu wrote:
> I'm getting really confused about groups and users. I've been logging in as root, setting up xwindows, etc.
> Now I see that my mail, news, and browser cache have filled up the root director
> y, and I understand there are other
> problems that will arise too doing everything as root. This is a > single-user machine, so security is not an issue.
Security against a malicious attack may not be an issue. What about
security against your own mistakes ?? I think we all learn about the
risk one runs when using root.
> So I created another user in the group wheel, which would presumably give me acc
Read the file /etc/group. Check to see if the non-root user ("usr" for
the sake of discussion) is in wheel. I used adduser to put a user in
wheel once and it didn't work. To be sure that your new user is in wheel
you must read /etc/group.
Your correct entry will look some thing like this. The useranmes in any
one group are comma seperated with no spaces before or after the comma.
wheel:0:*:root,usr
> ess to all the configuration files but create caches
> in /usr/home/"username". However this new user, which id says belongs to wheel,
> cannot su to root. In addition, I cannot start user ppp
If the user is in wheel then you can su to root.
> while logged in as anything but root. Also, though I think I understand why, I
> can't start xwindows with xdm except as root.
> (I need to
> figure out why startx can't find the symbolic link X to the > xserver--the path se
> ems to be correct).
Look in your startup file for the "usr". This file will have the name
.profile or .login depending on whether you use /bin/sh or /bin/csh for
your shell. This file must have a statement for your path. This path
should include /usr/X11R6/bin. Check this to see if your path is
correct.
> How do I create a usr that can su to root?
Put the username in group wheel per above.
> Should I just bite the bullet and re
> install everything?
NO NO. It will be much easier to figure it out than reinstall. You will
learn something new about configuring your system. It will take less
time. Also, I know it doesn't matter to the single user environment like
yours but keeping your system operable is something many people in the
UNIX community strive for.
Read man su, man group, man vipw, man chgrp, for more info.
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