gabriel rosenkoetter on Fri, 12 Jul 2002 10:15:59 -0400


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Re: [PLUG] DVD frustration


On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 06:15:35AM -0400, Paul wrote:
> Yeah.  That's kind of strange.  I'm logged in to X and I own many 
> devices in /dev.  At the same time another user is logged in on VC1, but 
> I own the devices.  So I guess the other user can't use the CD-ROM 
> drive?  I tried to test it, but when I insert a CD it automounts.  If I 
> do "umount /dev/cdrom" the CD ejects.  I'll test it later without loggin 
> in to X.

::sigh::

I've explained this before. It's really very simple. Whatever you
used to login (xdm, kdm, gdm, et c.) executes as root. When you, the
user, login, it chowns and chmods things to you. When you log out,
it chowns and chmods them back to root. It's presumed that you'll be
running X on a mostly-single-user workstation (why would you want X
on a server?), but it's completely configurable. Under standard
X11 stuff (read, xdm), the files are at:

  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/GiveConsole
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/TakeConsole

GiveConsole gives it to the user who logged in, TakeConsole takes it
back. I'm certain that KDE and Gnome have similar mechanisms, but
I've never done anything with them but uninstall them, so I can't
tell you where.

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

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