Tim:
> I am curious whether a user can cause system problems by
modifying
> their own files?
Les:
Yes, they can. There are many many files in the user account that
either begin with "." or reside in a directory that begins with "."
that the user owns and can modify, which are in fact modified by the
controls for the various applications, so write capability is required
for customization. If you go to a users directory and do the command
% ls -al
You will see a number of files and directories that begin with "."
in each of these there are controls for the applications behavior from
".login" to ".bashrc" or ".kashrc" to various
".ini" files or ".dat"
files that are used to setup and initialize applications, or in the
case of the browser to select plugins to decode some forms of web
data, such as JAVA or Jscript, movie formats, still photograph
formats, downloads, etc. etc.
That much I know. They can affect how *they* use their account, but can
they affect the "system"? i.e. What the computer does in their absence,
and how other users use it?
Sure, I can stuff up my .bash* files, and make it impossible for me to
use my account properly. But the next person to log on isn't using my
account, and isn't affected by my mangled .bash* files. The question is
can I do something to my personal files that isn't restricted to my own
use of a system?
--
(This box runs FC5, my others run FC4 & FC6, in case that's
important to the thread.)
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.