[SoaS] zyx-liveinstaller: currently can be run by user

Douglas McClendon dmc.sugar at filteredperception.org
Mon Oct 26 05:42:48 EDT 2009


FYI, I ran across a blueprint comment that suggested the 'needing to run 
as root' may be a necessary and sufficient barrier for the installer, to 
prevent kids from accidentally nuking their parents partitions.

But, like Fedora's standard LiveOS installer, zyx-liveinstaller takes 
advantage of the lack of root password on the LiveCD/USB, and uses 
consolehelper to allow the installer to be run as user (su to root not 
necessary).

Now, given how easy it appears to su to root in the terminal activity 
(you guys made it a button even), I'm not exactly sure if it really is a 
sufficient barrier, if in fact a barrier is necessary.

I don't have a real strong opinion on how it should be.  For a while I 
thought about the installer being an activity/sugarized, but then 
decided that launching from a terminal was cooler anyway :) (no sarcasm)

But it did sound like a reasonable point to discuss.  I can probably 
implement various trivial things.  I could check for /etc/soas-release 
or whatever, and error immediately if not root.  But again, with the 
pushbutton passwordless simplicity of su, I'm not convinced its really a 
solution, and not having kids, am not one to guage how serious a problem 
it is.

-dmc




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