read-only login

noir911 · 02-09-2006, 03:27 AM

I need to give access to a test user to the system (through SSH). Does anyone know if I could give read-only access to that user in the system? The user will login as a normal user but will only have read-only permission to what she does in the system.

TIA.

gilead · 02-09-2006, 03:53 AM

I don't believe so, but...

A normal user only has write access to the files in their home directory and in places where files have been marked world writable (/tmp for example). Since /tmp normally has the sticky bit set so users can't delete each other's files this is usually safe. Is there something specific you're worried about the user doing apart from messing up their own home directory?

satinet · 02-09-2006, 04:03 AM

this might be something you are interested in:

http://www.howtoforge.com/chrooted_ssh_howto_debian

i was thinking of this myself.

although i guess it's a bit different to what you want to do.

anyway, you could make the user in a group that is unique to her (i.e.) she has no group access. Then she will only ever have 'other' file permissions.

depends on how tight your permissions are...

noir911 · 02-10-2006, 02:20 AM

Thanks for the help guys. One of the users had rights to start a deamon with a special account. I just told him not to login with that account and added another account for him. And that's working thus far.

Haven't done the hard yard to get chroot-ssh but that's part of a bigger plan