Re: Integrate VMware and Gnome - continued

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

> automatically would be "hey man, VMware has been installed on this
> system by your sysadmin, do care? (yes/no) do you want to have Vmware
> icons on your desktop (yes/no) do you want to have startup menu entry
> for vmware (yes/no)"

We have something like this at work for NT. :-)  When you log in it
tells you that a new software package has been installed and whether you
would like to use it.

> What is the exact startup sequence of a Gnome session? Is there a way
> (read: a parameter to modify) to make it execute arbitrary code (read: 
> VMware code)?

You don't want to do this as it creates a security hole.  All it takes
is someone to put something malign for arbitrary code.  Maybe this is
paranoid thinking but it seems to me that this kind of structure is
exactly what a cracker would be targeting in order to corrupt as many
users as possible.

Alternatively, maybe it would be better if there was a file one could
stat to see if there are new programs to be executed.  The file would
contain the install path and the path to the script to run to install the
userland portion of vmware while the system part of vmware be installed by
the sysadm.


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Sri Ramkrishna         /|\ Unix is very user friendly, its just very picky
email: sri@aracnet.com -|- on who it is friendly to. -- Unknown? 
phone: 503-356-1078    \|/ 
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