On Wed 09 Nov 2016 at 11:27:11 +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 10:12:13AM +0000, Brian wrote: > > On Wed 09 Nov 2016 at 09:48:01 +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > > > > > On Tue, Nov 08, 2016 at 08:39:51PM +0000, Brian wrote: > > > > On Tue 08 Nov 2016 at 14:41:45 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > > > > > > > > >>>>>>> *HOWEVER* parted requires root privileges. That is not > > > > > >>>>>>> acceptable. > > > > > >>>>>>> Suggestions? > > > > > >>>>>>> TIA > > > > > > Futzing with partitions is the admin's job. > > > > > > > > > > Could be, but it's not (g)parted's job to enforce these kinds of > > > > > rules: > > > > > that's what Unix permissions (and Linux's capabilities) are for. > > > > > > > > > > It's OK to add a warning and prompt the user to make sure he really > > > > > means to do that, but there's no point *preventing* the user from > > > > > shooting his own foot with this tool if he can do it with other > > > > > tools anyway. > > > > > > > > Users here get no opportunity to shoot themselves or anyone else in the > > > > foot. Access to raw disks is over my dead body. So I do not understand > > > > your point. > > > > > > C'mon. Cut the drama. Dead bodies and that. > > > > It's a turn of phrase. Sometimes used with a touch of humour. > > > > > As if "raw disk" were some kind of sacred stuff. In my case they are > > > simple files on disk (disk images). Shall I have to become root every > > > time I have to write a partition table to that? No. I just use fdisk. > > > > > > It's the job of file (device) permissions to ensure that. Or are you > > > going to patch around bash's redirection operator too, to keep "users" > > > from shooting themselves in the foot by issuing > > > > > > echo "mumble" > /dev/sda2 > > > > > > Not really. > > > > That gives "-bash: /dev/sda2: Permission denied" for me with a fixed > > disk. It's the same for a removable disk. The system came like that. > > Hopefully. But that's not because bash checks that (as parted is). > It's because the permissions on the device file are set right! > > IOW, it's not the application's job (bash or parted), it's the OS's > job (with the sysadmin's help) to check access permissions. > > BTW it's very easy to fool the application itself (and this migh be > a perverse "solution" to Richard's problem). Just run gparted under > fakeroot. It won't convey you read/write permissions you don't have, > but it will fool gparted to think it's running as root:
'fakeroot lsblk -f' gives the same output on Jessie as 'lsblk -f". > tomas@rasputin:~$ whoami > tomas > tomas@rasputin:~$ fakeroot whoami > root > tomas@rasputin:~$ > > So try running "fakeroot gparted" -- that might help. No need for > elevated permissions :-) > > Fakeroot is in the like-named package. I hope cfdisk is an acceptable alternative to gparted, which is not on my system. 'fakeroot /sbin/cfdisk' gives "cfdisk: cannot open /dev/sda: Permission denied". -- Brian.