On Sat, 15 Feb 2003, Murray J. Root wrote:

> msec is a nice tool - for sys admins. For the average user it's nothing
> more than a pain in the ass. My kids want to create videos, not mess
> with config scripts. And they shouldn't have to - but with msec
> installed one of them needed to learn enough to tell msec to stop
> disabling access to firewire devices so they could use dvgrab and kino.

Msec does not touch devices:
[bgmilne@bgmilne bgmilne]$ grep dev /usr/share/msec/perm.?
/usr/share/msec/perm.0:/dev/
root.root               755
/usr/share/msec/perm.1:/dev/
root.root               755
/usr/share/msec/perm.2:/dev/
root.root               755
/usr/share/msec/perm.3:/dev/
root.root               755
/usr/share/msec/perm.4:/dev/
root.root               711
/usr/share/msec/perm.5:/dev/
root.root               711

Maybe you mean pam_console?

> By default it only let "root" use those tools (a stupid default, I know,
> but a great example of why msec sucks). Their first attempts to change
> things were undone by msec - even though the changes were made as "root".
> A definite BAD THING. There should be NO, NONE, ZIP, ZILCH, ZERO,
> operations performed by "default" that override "root" actions. If "root"
> does something stupid, "root" should pay the price. The default tools'
> config should NOT second-guess. At MOST they should issue warnings or
> mails.
> Personally, I think msec requires too much education of users to be of
> any value as a default tool.

Except for one rule (/home/* 711, which makes life difficult if you put
non-homedirectoies under /home) msec 3 is fine for desktop use without any
administration. By default, only home directories should be under /home,
so by default it is not a problem.

> Not being a sys admin I have no idea if it
> helps them in any way ( I write software - I rarely use it :)
>

msec is useful for sys admins.

Buchan

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