Re: [RFC] User Accesable Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

Zackary Deems <[email protected]> writes:   
   
> I really don't like this proposal.  Aside from what   
> the other two gentlemen have had to say, I think it   
> totally approaches the problem from the wrong way.    
> You would never want to put something in a user's home   
> directory that would be shared.  You're ASKING for   
> problems in a multi-user environment.   
   
It doesn't put anything shared in a user's home directory. It places shared   
items in /home/shared/, not in a user's home directory. The stuff in a user's   
home directory is meant to be private.   
   
> (Actually, you're asking for problems by allowing   
> non-administrator users to install software, period,   
> and this should only be implemented in a 'home user'   
> environment where software installation is typically   
> supervised anyhow).  The entire notion put forward   
> tends to remove many of the safeguards inherent to   
> linux right now (ASSUMING you don't give root access   
> to every user who accesses the machine).     
   
Users already can install software. Their are no safeguards against this. They   
just need to set the prefix in their home directory. If there is some   
safeguard I am forgetting about, please tell me.   
   
> That being said, however, I would suggest simply   
> creating a 'chroot' type environment someplace like   
> /usr/root which would be rwx for group <arbitrary   
> name>"usr" and place all users in this group as a   
> secondary group.  This will allow the home directory   
> to remain closed to all but the owner.   Standard   
> /etc, /usr, /var and /opt may be created here and   
> proper executable directories added to the PATH.  If   
> more granularity is required, break the /usr/bin   
> directory down into subdirectories named for the user   
> doing the install.  This would provide the users the   
> ability to add whichever users' /usr/bin to their path   
> as they choose.   
 
 
 
> configure scripts expect everything to be situated   
> properly on top of a --prefix, so in general, this   
> simply requires changing the standard prefix to   
> /usr/root/usr/   
   
Someone already noted this, and the next revision of the proposal will likely   
have almost everything moved into a dot directory in each area. So, there   
would be ~/.system/bin, ~/.system/opt, /home/shared/.system/bin, and so on.   
   
> point being, rather than creating 300 ~/.etc   
> directories (1 for each of 300 theoretical users),   
> let's create ONE /usr/root/etc that's rwx for all 300.   
>  In the end, you're asking for the traditional   
> problems of multiple users overwriting each others'   
> changes.. but apparently this is more desirable than   
> the current situation.   
   
This allows them to have a private area for things that they want to keep   
private and a public area for things they wish to keep public.   
   
The other reason for placing this into /home/shared/ is to extend the ability   
of users to share files locally on home systems.   
   
Please note that the standard states this is only intended for home   
environments, not server environments.   
   
> I'm currently only copying this to devel-list.   
>    
> Z   
   
Thanks for the suggestions.   
   
> On Saturday 27 March 2004 05:34 pm, you wrote:   
> > http://www.csis.gvsu.edu/~abreschm/uafhs/   
> > - --   
> > Gary L. Greene, Jr.