[Thunar-dev] Feature request: superuser mode

[Danny Milosavljevic]

Hi,

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 07:55:31 +0200, N. Volbers wrote:
> Danny Milosavljevic schrieb:
[...]
>> I thought running X (or worse, gtk) applications as root was a security
>> hazard.
> 
> I am not talking about running X as root. And IMHO running a single gtk 
> application as root is definitely the better solution than running your 
> whole X session as root.

Even better is running _only_ the actual 
readdir/cp/mv/unlink as root.
But maybe that's just me.

> 
> I am a big fan of the shell, but I don't believe it should be a 
> neccessity to use it if you want to delete/modify/rename/whatever some 
> system files. 

Of course not, that would be ridiculous.

> So what this superuser mode (which is now already implemented, thanks 
> Benedikt!) is all about, is the ability to spawn a new instance of 
> thunar 

I see that I was not clear enough.

It is dangerous to _ever_ spawn X stuff at all as root. 
Read: X is buggy, gtk is more buggy and probably has 
more holes than a swiss cheese.

Or is it better nowadays?

> for these rare cases where you need superuser access (using gksu
> or something similar), and then, because just as you said it is
> dangerous to work as root, to remind you of the fact that you are
> running thunar as superuser.

Then it's too late.

Or is it all about risk management? :)

cheers,
  Danny