Running graphical programs as root

Kevin Chadwick ma1l1ists at yahoo.co.uk
Sat May 5 19:36:53 CEST 2012


On Sat, 05 May 2012 09:39:32 -0400
Greg Folkert wrote:

> Meh.

Not telling people about security issues because they didn't ask!!

Meh


It took two seconds to be pointed out even if they likely don't
care and another two seconds to check the man page for it if they care.

If they have been made to or are using sudo other than just as typo
protection then they should/would care.


It would be very simple for a gui text editor to utilise sudoedit.

Maybe someone could suggest one that does?


In fact, I should have gone further and said unless a program asks you
for root permissions you shouldn't be running it as root without
undertanding all possible implications. This is even true of simple
commands but especially of gui programs that may create immutable by
normal users files and problems and almost always resets sudoers to
all commands allowed. The distros probably get this priviledge
seperation wrong, too though for ease!


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