Bug 13307 - When exiting the console tty, device permissions revert even if an X session still needs them.
Summary: When exiting the console tty, device permissions revert even if an X session ...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: pam
Version: 6.2
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Nalin Dahyabhai
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2000-07-01 05:32 UTC by madings
Modified: 2008-05-01 15:37 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-08-07 05:52:17 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description madings 2000-07-01 05:32:05 UTC
If I log into a console tty, run this command,
    startx &
to run X11 in the background, and then log out of
the console tty,  then in the X session I no longer
have the access I need for device files such as
/dev/cdrom and /dev/kbd.

It seems that when logging out of the tty console,
if there are no other tty consoles left with me
logged in, it reverts ownership of /dev/cdrom and
/dev/kbd back to root again instead of leaving them
in my name for the sake of the X session.

The upshot of this is that when this happens I cannot
run any CD player, I cannot mount CD-ROMs, and I cannot
adjust the keyboard repeat rate.  If I log back in to
one of the console tty's and just leave it at the prompt,
then these things work again in X.

This may be affecting more than just /dev/cdrom and /dev/kbd.
Those are just the files where I noticed the problem.  I
think it likely that there is a set of device files that are
re-assigned when a user logs in and logs out, and they are
probabably all affected by this, but I don't know enough
details to tell if this is the case.

This is a security problem because it means I have to leave a
console logged in to make X work properly, and when I do
that, even with the screen xlocked someone can still come
by and hit ctrl-alt-F1 and get to my logged-in prompt.

I suspect that this isn't a problem for people who run
X11 via an xdm login, but I don't always want X running
at all times, so I don't do that.

Comment 1 Nalin Dahyabhai 2000-07-03 07:46:27 UTC
The problem with leaving devices ownership of console devices alone when you
log out is that the next user logging in won't be able to use them.  I suspect
what you really want to do is "exec startx" at your console prompt.


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.