Baslinux mailing list

[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> Why most programs simply refuse to work and/or refuse to store
> configuration for user:
>
> ---
> ~<$> echo $HOME
> /root
> ---
>
> Because of that, you cannot use any programs that store their
> configuration in home directory, because $HOME - /root is owned by root.
>
> Lynx and all the programs look at this variable to figure out where
> are the config files located - $HOME/.lynx or $HOME/.opera. They
> expand the path to /root/.lynx or /root/.opera, and, because of that,
> the applications get permission errors.
>
> To fix this once and for all, one has to comment out the following line
> in /etc/profile:
>
> -----
> export HOME=/root
> -----
>
> I suggest fixing this bug in BL3's multiple user implementation by adding
> the following line to passwd.tgz's install/install.sh:
>
> ---
> ( [ -f /etc/profile ] && sed -ie 's/^\(export HOME=\/root\)[ \t]*$/#\1/' 
> /etc/profile )
> ---
>
> Karolis


Karolis has been using strace to help me.


To run BL3 as user, in addition to deleting the line in /etc/profile, you 
also need to change permissions on devices ?ty* urandom null dsp* lp* 
(666) so user can dial, use rxvt, ssh, opera, mplayer and a printer.  Any 
other devices?

For lynx and mutt to work make /tmp o+rw (lynx writes files there 
temporarily while gunzipping them).  Ditto for /download if you download 
to there rather than /tmp or /home/user.

eznet needs to be suid and user-executable (chmod o+sx?) in order to run 
pppd with root permissions and access pppd and pap-secrets.

You need to have a file (can be empty) /etc/ppp/options.

ppp-on and ppp-off are not on the path for user, so need to be symlinked 
to some place on the path such as /usr/bin.

And make Xvesa suid (or add a regular X with startx and Xwrapper set to 
allow access only from the console not remotely).  Do the other TinyX 
servers only work suid?

Steven would you want to include the above changes in BL3.50 and add 
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xwrapper (4960 bytes in BL2), and /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config 
containing the line allowed_users=console? (But they don't work with 
Xvesa).

Xwrapper can also be used standalone (without X) to list all the video 
chips supported by the server and the chipset in use, list mode clocks, 
and other useful things.

This next bit would need to be done by passwd.tgz (or root):

chown -R user /home/user/* and .*
chgrp -R 500 (or users?) ditto.
(Did I get this right?).

You also need to make any svgalib program suid (chmod +s), if not using 
kernel 2.4 with the new svgalib_helper.o module and /dev/svga (won't 
compile for 2.2).  zgv links2 from Delilinux  svp (pdf/ps viewer)

In any event, I have listed in one place what you need to do to BL3 to 
make it work for 'user'.  Did I miss something?


Thanks again to Karolis.

Sindi