Funny Linux Qwirks.
 

I think it's just hilarious when I type reboot at the command prompt and I'm told I have to be root to reboot. Then I hit <Ctrl><Alt><Del> and the system reboots!

Is that funny or what?


Anybody else know any qwirks like that?

You can lock your X screen and if you hit "any key" you will be prompted for the password. If you hit CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE it will kill the X server and take you back to the users command prompt where you can do what you want.

It all boils down to admining your machine(s) for security. You have to know about the potential problems and how to fix them.

The quirks I think come from on one hand the need for security trying to be balanced with attempting to make it easy on newbie home users.

if users could reboot the system by issuing "reboot" or "shutdown -r now" then, assuming you allow people you know shell accounts (like me!), they could restart the machine any time they wanted, this would piss me off no end ;) not that they would of course...

Only the systems admin can actually press CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Assuming that there is a server room, or a secured sysadmin area. Several of the placed I worked simply had the machines out in the open, and anybody could give the three finger salute if they so desired.

Steve

A Red Hat 9 matter - I'm not sure whether this is a quirk or not but I havent heard of the reason.

su
root password

gives a root user with a "home" directory of /root with cd and does'nt cd into /root automatically - and a PATH the same as an ordinary user.

su - (su dash)
root password

gives a root user with a "home" directory of /root with cd and does cd into /root automatically - and a typical root user PATH including /sbin and /usr/sbin

Because the fdisk utility is in /sbin you would use su - (su dash) to become the particular root user with /sbin in your PATH as opposed to the root user with an ordinary user PATH.

you can take the group and world execute permissions off ctrlaltdel with:

"chmod g,o-x /sbin/ctrlaltdel"

you can also disable ctrlaltbackspace in x by passing the server the "DontZap"
flag in your xconfig.