Multiuser Puppy 4.2.1

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PaulBx1
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#16 Post by PaulBx1 »

Bravo Pizzasgood! Excellent work!!!

I love root user, but this is really needed for Puppy to be taken seriously. Soon we will be top dog! :D

raffy
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mirror

#17 Post by raffy »

For hiccups (download link not working), note that there are download mirrors:

CAUTION: NOT YET UPDATED FOR REVISION 1 !!!

mirror1

mirror2
Last edited by raffy on Sun 18 Oct 2009, 01:52, edited 1 time in total.
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dawg
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#18 Post by dawg »

OK, I've installed the thing (frugal) and all seems fine when running as root.
However, when running as user, none of the disk icons show up and I can't mount anything either.
My /etc/group looks fine, I think:

Code: Select all

root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
tty:x:2:
ppp:x:200:
users:x:500:
nobody:x:65534:
guest:x:501:
spot:x:502:spot
bin::2:root,bin,daemon
audio::17:user
503:x:503:messagebus
ftp:x:1000:
dip:x:30:
disk:x:6:user
power:x:550:user
user:x:1001:
What I did exactly:
1. copied the necessary files directly from the iso to a directory on sda1 and adjusted my grub menu accordingly
2. booted into my new Puppy and chose appropriate settings for my machine and country
3. Puppy loads, I click the welcome message, it woofs, etc
4. set-up my network card
5. chose reboot and created a save file (64MB) in the default puppy directory on sda1
6. Puppy reboots and loads again fine (still as root)
7. added a user (all 3 offered permission groups) with a pass
8. disabled autologin as root
9. I reboot and login as user, it loads fine, except there are no drive icons etc. (also Seamonkey only contains its default basic (not root's) bookmarks). Reboots fine.

I may also add that logging in as root now becomes impossible if we hadn't set a root pass previously! :)

That's about it..

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Pizzasgood
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#19 Post by Pizzasgood »

In the Original Post, Pizzasgood wrote:Note: Although users in the "disk" group can mount/unmount partitions, they still don't get the desktop icons. However, I have things set up to automatically configure /etc/fstab, which means that you can simply go into /mnt/ and click on the mountpoints you want, and ROX-Filer will automatically mount them for you, and optionally unmount them when you exit. You can of course drag these to the desktop and set their icons and such. So this limitation isn't a big deal.
When you say you can't mount anything, what do you mean? Did you try manually mounting with the mount command, or navigating into the mountpoint with ROX-Filer, or using Pmount?

I didn't test Pmount. Mainly because I forgot. So I don't know if that method will work. I'm away from home for the weekend, otherwise I'd try it now. But the other two methods should work. Note: you cannot specify many (if any) extra mount options as a user. You have to use the options preset in /etc/fstab.


As for root, the default root password is woofwoof, just like in the official Puppies. In the interest of making the multiuser additions as transparent as possible to the end user, I didn't set it up to force the user to pick a new password.
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dawg
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#20 Post by dawg »

My bad, I must've overlooked that part, I apologize. I should stop doing this sh*t when I'm sleepy/tired/distracted :D And I should also set-up some other machine for this to avoid the rebooting and stuff all the time..

Pmount is the one I went for and that doesn't work, the other 2 methods indeed do work.

Thanks, I didn't know about the password.. I guess I should RTFM? hard work.. :D

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8-bit
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#21 Post by 8-bit »

Running as a user other than root, and mount disabled, one could not save anything to a flash drive that they had created.
Also, 'sudo' gives command not found.
'su root' requests a password and works. Verifiable with 'whoami'
The permission denied messges and not showing up.
trying to mount a device brings up an empty window with rox.
After 'su root', mounting only works from the command line. It does not automatically open a window with ROX.
A check using Pmount shows the drive was mounted and using Pmount after command line mounting will bring up a ROX window of the drive.
I have not tried to edit any files that had root as owner so that is a still to do.

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Pizzasgood
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#22 Post by Pizzasgood »

I didn't install sudo. Forgot. Sorry. Maybe I'll make one next weekend. I'll try to get pmount running then too.
The permission denied messges and not showing up.
Sorry, not following you. You'll have to elaborate a little about what you're talking about here.
After 'su root', mounting only works from the command line. It does not automatically open a window with ROX.
How do you mean? If you do a su root, all that affects is that specific terminal window and any programs launched from it. So to mount with any way besides the mount command, you would have to launch that other method from the terminal that has the root privileges.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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swarnick
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Cannot exit from multiuser puppy 4.2.1

#23 Post by swarnick »

Pizzasgood wrote:The link is working for me right now too. Must have been a hiccup.
just tried multi user puppy,and it does not want to shut down,it just restarts x,even trying from the terminal.
Okay. I'll need some more information though:

How are you trying to reboot? As root or as a user?

If a user, is it a member of the "power" group?

Is this the first boot, or have you already created a pup_save.2fs file?

Are you using Xorg or Xvesa?
I am having this same problem. To answer the questions
1. Initial boot, therefore I am running as root.
2. I am Booting and then running from a usb drive. I made the usb drive with unetbootin and the lastest iso.
3. Xvesa 1024x768x24
4. No save file yet because I can't shut down the first time to create one.

Hope this helps. Obviously this issue is a showstopper.

ralphv
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Re: Cannot exit from multiuser puppy 4.2.1

#24 Post by ralphv »

swarnick wrote:
Pizzasgood wrote:The link is working for me right now too. Must have been a hiccup.
just tried multi user puppy,and it does not want to shut down,it just restarts x,even trying from the terminal.
Okay. I'll need some more information though:

How are you trying to reboot? As root or as a user?

If a user, is it a member of the "power" group?

Is this the first boot, or have you already created a pup_save.2fs file?

Are you using Xorg or Xvesa?
I am also having this problem.
I am running it in virtualbox using xvesa.
I used a pup save for puppy 4.20, couldn't
make one because never have shut down.
Managed to make a user, also won't
shut down for the user.

Ralph

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Pizzasgood
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#25 Post by Pizzasgood »

Okay, I'll take a look. I don't think it occurred to me to test shutting down from Xvesa.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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ralphv
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#26 Post by ralphv »

Pizzasgood wrote:Okay, I'll take a look. I don't think it occurred to me to test shutting down from Xvesa.
I got virtualbox guest additions added to it and was able to shutdown in Xorg
Ralph

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Pizzasgood
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#27 Post by Pizzasgood »

I found the problem and am fixing it now. (Temporary fix: just try a second time and it should work then.)

I also fixed the issue with Pmount (it was passing options to the mount command, which doesn't work when you are a user, so I set the mount command up to detect when that fails and try with nothing but the mountpoint).

I'm working on sudo.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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Pizzasgood
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#28 Post by Pizzasgood »

Okay, I uploaded "revision 1". The first post has been updated with the new download link. I also updated the "gory details" thread with the new information and links to the _DEV, _DOC, and _NLS packages for PAM and Sudo, in case anybody needs those. All the other packages listed there that were affected by the updates in r1 have been updated too.

Changes:
  • Added Linux-PAM
  • Added sudo
  • Added "wheel" group and edited adduser-wizard to reflect this (unchecked by default)
  • Edited ~/.xinitrc to use /tmp/${USER}-videomode rather than /tmp/videomode when determining if video-wizard was being run (fixes Xvesa reboot issue)
  • Edited /bin/mount to try again with only the mountpoint when the first try fails (fixes Pmount issue)
  • Edited /bin/mount to use "$@" rather than "$*" in the calls to mount-FULL
  • Edited /etc/gshadow to add the missing line for the "audio" group
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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raffy
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different ISO

#29 Post by raffy »

ERROR: The new link gets the same old ISO!!!

Am guessing that you would not post a new ISO with the same old name, but then I have to confirm before I complain. :) I got the "new" ISO from the new link but got the same old ISO.

Anyway, the URL of the new ISO should be evident:
browserloadofcoolness.com..puppy-4.2.1-MULTIUSER-r1.iso

Thanks!
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Pizzasgood
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#30 Post by Pizzasgood »

Oops. I edited the visible part but forgot to update the actual url part. Thanks for pointing that out.
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richard.a
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#31 Post by richard.a »

Pizzasgood You have done a great job here. Thanks mate.

I saw earlier that you weren't going to do this for other puppies; wondering, though, if you would be able to do an add-on (pupget or something) that contains the extras needed to do this? Like Warren did with the EZ-pup updater he built.

Have tried the first version and got similar problems to your correspondents sent in, so felt shouldn't merely repeat others comments. However have downloaded R1 ISO so hope to look in another day or so.

It looks nice on the AspireOne - as nice as on a 19inch monitor :)

Thanks again

Richard
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Pizzasgood
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#32 Post by Pizzasgood »

The problem with just making an addon is that the system scripts are where the most complicated modifications are. At the same time, those are the files most likely to change between versions. A .pet could theoretically do it by applying patches to modify those files rather than replace them. But as soon as a line of a script that was modified in a patch gets changed in a version of Puppy, the patch would no longer work and I'd get a bunch of people begging for an updated version of the patch.

If you look at the how-to thread I linked to in the first post, I did provide packages of the additional software I packaged or wrote, along with archives of many of the files that I modified. But I decided not to bother trying to automate the procedure. Besides the issue I mentioned, where you know that it failed, doing things automatically could lead to situations where a change between versions introduced some code that the addon doesn't catch. In that circumstance it would look like it worked. Maybe it would even boot and run properly. But there could be a subtle bug somewhere that would only come up in rare situations and be hard to diagnose. And it would be very bad if the user's motivation in using it was security related, because he could have all kinds of holes without knowing it. So that would make releasing such a thing almost feel negligent on my part.


And anyway, that would take even more time and energy, which I would much rather apply to other projects now that I've accomplished my goal here.
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richard.a
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#33 Post by richard.a »

Fair enuff mate.

I totally understand :)

Take care.


Richard
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stevoomba
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#34 Post by stevoomba »

It's always puzzled me why Puppy's never had the multi-user option. I'm quite happy to be root, but I don't see why there shouldn't be the option to go multi even in the official releases.

Thanks for the work PG.
Steve

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richard.a
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#35 Post by richard.a »

stevoomba wrote:It's always puzzled me why Puppy's never had the multi-user option.
From what I've read, the original intention of the distribution was to have the fastest possible loading time, while running as a live distribution - in effect a diskless machine.

The less code that has to be loaded at boot-up, the faster it will run. And apart from the possibility of deleting the whole file system tree by a root user, there could be no security problems. That tree being located in memory, copied from the CD, it would be restored immediately on reboot.

The rest of this post may be slightly off-topic but is provided to explain the antagonism that exists over root user.

Having spent several years assisting with the development of another so-called "root only" system - which actually was a misnomer because it did provide multi-user facilities - it's interesting to note that its very wide user base never had one reported - or even one anecdotal - incident of invasive access by the actions of a cracker (NOT hacker).

Regardless of that, there will always be a vocal minority who will be determined to force their views on those who actually have "been there, done that" as it is called.

FYI I was assisting with the testing and release of several BSD-Unix versions over a couple of years or so at one time, and I got into really hot water through suggesting on their forum that a range of nicely coloured red wallpapers (backgrounds) for those who chose to use a GUI login as root, along with instructions on how to convert root GUI prohibition to root GUI enabling, and vice-versa, in Gnome and KDE was available on my website for those who wanted to exercise their own personal choice... for example ubuntu which by default does not allow root logins, vs Sun Java Desktop Linux which does (both of these are Gnome-based).

http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/root_wallpaper
http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/root_GUI_login

There was such an uproar by the vocal minority that I shifted my interest elsewhere.
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