Users and Groups

[Les Mikesell]

Frank Cox wrote:
> 
>>> The keyboard/monitor that's locally attached to the system (server).
>> What if you don't use that (or the box doesn't have them) and instead 
>> always connect via X/freenx/ssh?
> 
> Then you're not using a console.
> 
>>>> and what does it have to do with a unix-like system?
>>> Among other things, the console user has (or can have) special permissions that
>>> are set by /etc/security/console.perms and /etc/security/console.perms.d/
>> Seems like a really, really bad idea for an operating system that 
>> permits remote access and doesn't care where you are.
> 
> That is one of the reasons behind having a console.  By definition, a remote
> access terminal session is not a console.  Unix/Linux definitely does care if
> you're local or remote when assigning console permissions as described above.

No, fedora, udev, or some recent change cares about this.  Traditional 
unix would run on boxes with no concept of a local console and never 
changed permissions on anything, including the device nodes in /dev 
without being explicitly told to do so by someone with appropriate 
rights.  I understand the problem this tries to solve by guessing that 
someone near the attached keyboard might be the owner of the machine, 
but it makes the system very single-user-Microsoft-ish in my opinion.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com