I have recently installed openSUSE 11.3 with GNOME on a spare Toshiba laptop, which we would like to use at work for some of the staff at the nursing home at which I work. The installation finished without any apparent issues and I’ve now created an extra username for the staff. However I cannot find too many options in the YaST GUI to change the permissions for that user.
I read something on another forum somewhere about most of the more advanced settings for GDM (I think) having now been shifted from the GUI into the CLI. How can I find out what settings are available and what they mean? I would also like to know what sort of permissions this new user does or doesn’t have by default.
To setup users you run YaST / Security and Users / User and Group Management. When you installed openSUSE, you were allowed to set the root user password separately or the same as the first user you setup. The root user password and keeping it safe from other users is the number one security function you need to perform.
jonitfcfan wrote:
> How can I find out what settings are available and what
> they mean? I would also like to know what sort of permissions this new
> user does or doesn’t have by default.
by default new users have all the permissions of all default users and
no root/superuser permissions at all.
and, unless all the nursing home staff are qualified linux
administrators i’d leave it that way…and, not give anyone the root
password; and, do all the required administrative things yourself…
on the other hand, it is your machine and you are free to give them
all the permissions you think they need via setting up sudo (that is
exactly what it is made for, see man sudo)…but, from your question
it sounds like you don’t really know what they might need, or what
you might want to let them do, or not…which gives me more reason to
say: let them have the permissions of a user, only…that will GREATLY
reduce the damage they can do to the system…
