Hi Jeff,

Jeff Cai wrote:
> Darren comments below:
> 
> On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 08:02 +0100, Darren Kenny wrote:
>> That's not quite true about RBAC - while there is nothing in GConf to deal 
>> with
>> RBAC, it *could* have an effect - if the RBAC role provides the user with the
>> ability to modify files in /etc - which is where the mandatory settings are
>> stored by default.
> 
> But currently could RBAC  control the access to the directory /etc? I
> mean, have gconf-editor already supported RBAC? I can also use vi to
> change gconf file only if I  have the permission of writing the
> directory /etc. This doesn't relate with RBAC.

gconf-editor doesn't need to support RBAC directly, the RBAC "root" role allows
a user to run with essentially all privileges, so if you are that user, you can
write files directly in /etc - which means that you can in turn use gconf's
tools to modify these settings just like if you logged in as root on a normal
system and performed the same actions.

You can find out more about "root as a Role" at:

http://docsun.cites.uiuc.edu/sun_docs/C/solaris_9/SUNWaadm/SYSADV6/p23.html#RBACTASK-20

>> As Jeff says, there is the risk of inconsistency if a user is logged in, but 
>> in
>> normal use, a user shouldn't ever write a file to /etc, but in 
>> ${HOME}/.gconf.
>>
>> An other issue is that the configuration in /etc generally isn't re-read 
>> until
>> AFTER the gconf daemon is restarted for a user - so this would mean that a
>> currently logged-in user would be unlikely to see the change until after they
>> logout and login again - but it could be forced by a user running :
>>
>>      gconftool-2 --shutdown
>>
>> while would shutdown a running gconf2d daemon, which would be automatically
>> started again the next time a client app looks for a setting from it (which 
>> is
>> generally quite soon after the shutdown), and when it restarts the new 
>> settings
>> in /etc will be re-read.
>>
>> APOC changes all of this (AFAIK) due to the settings being stored in LDAP 
>> rather
>> than files - but I don't know enough about APOC to be able to confirm that a
>> change to a mandatory setting would take immediate effect, anyone else know??
> 
> The answer is yes. Only if the application is able to listen to events
> of value change of GConf. You can get more from
> http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-7573/ezswi?a=view

Cool, kinda guessed it might, but didn't want to assume.

Darren.



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