Tom, I truly appreciate your comprehensive explanation, only a fraction of which I was already aware. I have been convinced to not use superuser to login. However, when I started up kde as a user (after adding the 'echo "exec startkde" > ~/.xinitrc' command), it just hanged on the splash screen as it was trying to load peripherals. I believe this is because I'm unable to access everything that I installed as root, and I'm not sure how I would gain access to this. I realize this isn't directly a wine-related problem, but it will be necessary for me to overcome this before I can attempt to run wine without logging in as root. Thanks, Isaac (I'll stick with my real name ;) ) Tom Cavin wrote: >Hi Ray (aka Isaac), > >The only programs you should ever run as superuser are those that were >designed to be run by superuser and then only under the conditions for >which the program was designed. And even that is questionable practice. > >As a general rule, if a user ever has to do anything as root, something is >wrong. > >Yes, this is a "security precaution", but your use of the word "only" >indicates to me that you might have a limited view of security. > >It isn't just Wine that you shouldn't run as root or superuser, it's any >program. On any Unix or Linux computer system, a process running with root >(uid=0), (or in MS-Windows a process running with administrator >privileges) has unquestioned authority to change the system. > >Execution privileges directly affect program functionality, and giving a >program too many privileges means you may be giving it more than it was >designed for. > >The operating system doesn't care if the command to format the system disk >came from a command line of a logged in sys-admin who is wiping the disk >before disposal, or from an email virus automatically executed by Outlook >Express. If the process issuing the format command has sufficient >privileges to wipe the disk ... it's history. > >That's an extreme example, but there are many lesser issues that can cause >more subtle damage. Programs that are designed to be run by >non-privileged users may normally probe parts of the file system in order >to find a place to store temporary files. This probe can be as simple as >checking for read permissions, and a failed check causes the program to >look elsewhere for temporary file space. A user program may try to store >information in the current directory, and if it can't write there it will >switch to a user's home directory. If you run such a program as superuser, >the permissions check always succeeds, so you may end up writing files >anywhere on your system. > >in the case of Wine, this is a particularly serious issue. Wine is >designed to run programs that were written for a different OS. Regardless >of anyone's opinion of the innate reliability of such code, running _any_ >program in Wine is running it in a foreign environment that has different >rules than the program expects. > >As an analogy, consider average drivers in their home country. They >generally follow the rules of the road and know which side of the road to >drive on. If you take those drivers to another country where the rules are >different, but you keep them on a restricted test track with no other >drivers, things can work reasonably well. If you put those same drivers in >police cars with the sirens on and the lights flashing, in the middle of a >densely populated foreign city where they don't know the language or the >rules of the road, you are likely to have problems. If you replace those >foreign human drivers with robots hard-coded to drive on the "wrong" side >of the street, the odds get even worse. > >In my mind, that analogy is very close to what you do when you run Wine as >superuser. > >There is one difference though. If you do this on your own machine you are >only likely to hurt yourself. It might be interesting to see what happens, >and it could even be a good learning experience. > >But please don't do this on any system you (or anyone else) depends on. > >Best Wishes, > > --Tom > >Isaac Rabicoff writes: > > Usurp, > > > > I appreciate your response. If possible, however, I would like for you to > > go into greater detail as to why I shouldn't run wine as root. Actually, I > > always login as a user, then upgrade to super user (I realize this is > > effectively the same as root). To my understanding, not running programs as > > root is only a security precaution and shouldn't affect program > > functionality. Am I wrong? > > > > Thanks, > > - Ray (aka Isaac) > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Sylvain Petreolle" <spetreolle@xxxxxxxx> > > To: <wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx> > > Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 10:10 AM > > Subject: RE: WinNY and Wine > > > > > > > Rule #1: dont run wine as root. > > > --- Isaac Rabicoff <irabicoff@xxxxxxxxx> a écrit : > > > > > > > Hello everyone, > > > > > > > > I'm trying to figure out how to run Winny2b71 with wine-20050111-r1 > > > > on 2005.0 Gentoo Linux with kernel 2.6.11 r11 (I thought the version > > > > info might be helpful). The result is nothing-- no error message, > > > > nothing loads, nothing flashes. I have the program installed in > > > > /root/.wine/Apps/Winny2, and I use the appropriate ' wine "[path]" ' > > > > command to execute the program. > > > > > > > > > Kind regards, > > > > > > Usurp (aka Sylvain Petreolle) > > > > > > humans are like computers, > > > yesterday the BIOS was all > > > - today its just a word > > > _______________________________________________ > > > wine-users mailing list > > > wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx > > > http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wine-users > > > > _______________________________________________ > > wine-users mailing list > > wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx > > http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wine-users > >_______________________________________________ >wine-users mailing list >wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx >http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wine-users > > > _______________________________________________ wine-users mailing list wine-users@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wine-users
