Re: installing rpms and being root

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2000 at 07:06:56PM +0100 or thereabouts, bill.helke@cp.Novartis.com wrote:
> But there's one thing that has always scared me about using GnoRPM to do
> installs/upgrades - you have to be root to use it.  And also logged in to X.
> Root logged into X using an X-based tool to edit your system?  Now that's
> scary!

Oh, yes. Good point. I do it slightly differently, so I hadn't thought 
of that angle.

I'm never usually logged in as root. I run X (and hence Gnome) from
my user account. When I want to do rootish things, I start a terminal
with a different coloured background and type 'su' in the terminal.

    [hobbit@aloss ~]$ su
    Password:
    [root@aloss /home/hobbit]# gnorpm

    GnomeUI-WARNING **: While connecting to session manager:
    Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols
    specified are supported and host-based authentication failed.

I'm not sure what GnomeUI is burbling about, but GnoRPM started,
and I uninstalled a package to make sure. I appear to have lost
color-yahtzee entirely successfully. 

Actually, if someone could explain what it -is- burbling about,
I'd be very grateful :) I would assume it's saying that the
session manager didn't like something. 

I use this procedure for linuxconf, mount, and other root-only things 
too. I have the sudo rpms knocking around; I really should install those 
and do it 'properly'. But having root stuff in one terminal with a
different background and title reminds me not to hit return too hastily.

I used to colour-code windows by what machine each window had an ssh
running to, but that got too confusing :)

Telsa