Bug 166730 - non root users should be able to use the display cmds
Summary: non root users should be able to use the display cmds
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Classification: Red Hat
Component: lvm2
Version: 4.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: ---
: ---
Assignee: Petr Rockai
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2005-08-24 22:53 UTC by Corey Marthaler
Modified: 2008-07-24 20:07 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version: RHBA-2008-0776
Doc Type: Enhancement
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2008-07-24 20:07:06 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


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Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Product Errata RHBA-2008:0776 0 normal SHIPPED_LIVE lvm2 bug fix and enhancement update 2008-07-23 17:19:45 UTC

Description Corey Marthaler 2005-08-24 22:53:24 UTC
Or if not, at least the errors should be more clean

Description of problem:
[testmonkey@link-13 root]$ lvdisplay
  /etc/lvm/.cache: open failed: Permission denied
  No volume groups found
  /etc/lvm/.cache: fopen failed: Permission denied
[testmonkey@link-13 root]$ lvs
  /etc/lvm/.cache: open failed: Permission denied
  No volume groups found
  /etc/lvm/.cache: fopen failed: Permission denied

Comment 1 Alasdair Kergon 2005-08-30 16:08:39 UTC
Yeah - need to think a bit about this one: there are some circumstances where
it's useful for non-root users to be able to run the tools.  I'm not sure much
can be done though apart from displaying a warning message if run by a non-root
user.  [Useful if the user hasn't realised they aren't root and is puzzled why
everything's disappeared.]


Comment 2 Petr Rockai 2007-11-10 11:51:13 UTC
In my opinion, this just needs a better diagnostic (ie, the warning Alasdair 
mentioned). As a non-root, you cannot meaningfully use fdisk nor find out much 
about partition layout either, so this would probably pose an information leak 
anyway. For the user-interesting bits, one usually uses "df". I can take care 
of that warning message.

Comment 4 Alasdair Kergon 2007-11-10 16:08:49 UTC
Comment #2 needs clarification: there is a difference between things the kernel
requires you to be root to do, and things (like fdisk) that can be done as
non-root but are often restricted by filesystem permissions.  Hence my
suggestion that we just print a simple general warning when run as root that
some functionality may be restricted.

Comment 7 Corey Marthaler 2008-06-09 15:20:11 UTC
Verified that there's now a warning message.

Comment 9 errata-xmlrpc 2008-07-24 20:07:06 UTC
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files,
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2008-0776.html


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