tlug: More about Configuration Files

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave  <dave@example.com> writes:

    Dave> On the advice i got here, i've succesfully configured my
    Dave> .bashrc file to hold all the aliases that i like to have
    Dave> around. However, i'm still not getting the computer to start
    Dave> up certain programs when i log in. At first i put them in my
    Dave> .bash_profile, but that caused chaos to ensue. THen, on the

Noooo!  "Stop doing that."  :-)

    Dave> advice of a guy from the #Linux channel on IRC, i made a
    Dave> .xsession file and put the programs in there. This had
    Dave> absolutely no effect whatsoever, and this is where I am now
    Dave> stuck. So where DO i put the commands to start programs when
    Dave> i log in?

All praise RedHat and Pacific High Tech!  All praise MIT!  All praise
the mysterious and magical X initialization process!  (Debian docs,
Linux rocks!)

How do you start X?  If it's from the command line, do "less `which
<command to start X>`" and start tracing through the files mentioned
in the script.

Otherwise, first try `ln -s ~/.xsession ~/.xinitrc'.  This isn't
strictly speaking correct, but it might work.  Look for
`~/.window-manager-rc' (whatever your window manager is).  Most of
them allow starting programs; this may or may not work right for you.
But it probably will.

If all else fails, look first to see if /etc/X11 exists and read
everything readable in that directory and subdirectories; one of them
will be the real initialization script.  Next try /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
and its subdirectories.

    Dave> One other semi-related question: I would like to have an
    Dave> nxterm which starts up when i log in, and automatically goes
    Dave> into superuser mode, so it's ready and waiting for me when i
    Dave> (inevitably) need to do something as root. At my current

Leaving an su term lying around isn't a good idea, for the same
reasons using root as your regular user isn't a good idea.  (I do it
anyway....)  Do make sure the prompt is visually differentiated and
tells you where you're logged in.

    Dave> level of understanding, this might not be feasable since i
    Dave> would have to include the supersuer password in some file,
    Dave> and that would either be a huge breach of security, or
    Dave> simply not technically possible. ANy ideas on this?

If you're really concerned about security, I would strongly suggest a
bit of "gaman" and a lot of reorganizing your life so that things you
need to do a lot are in user space (eg, non-critical config files
could be owner you or group you for almost all programs).

As an exercise:

Put a script to do the job in a file on a floppy and wrap the command
to execute it (in your home directory) in

  if [ -x /mnt/floppy/run-a-su-nxterm ]; then
    /mnt/floppy/run-a-su-nxterm
  fi

If your box is physically secure (ie, you always lock the console when
away from your desk) but on a network, you can use a program like
super to run the nxterm as root, but only for your user and only when
logged in on a specific device, like the console or via xdm.

If you have a lot of such things that you might do on several systems,
you can handle them entering the password only once by using ssh and
sshagent.  But your box itself had better be physically secure in the
above sense.

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