Tim: >> I am curious whether a user can cause system problems by modifying >> their own files? Les: > Yes, they can. There are many many files in the user account that > either begin with "." or reside in a directory that begins with "." > that the user owns and can modify, which are in fact modified by the > controls for the various applications, so write capability is required > for customization. If you go to a users directory and do the command > % ls -al > > You will see a number of files and directories that begin with "." > in each of these there are controls for the applications behavior from > ".login" to ".bashrc" or ".kashrc" to various ".ini" files or ".dat" > files that are used to setup and initialize applications, or in the > case of the browser to select plugins to decode some forms of web > data, such as JAVA or Jscript, movie formats, still photograph > formats, downloads, etc. etc. That much I know. They can affect how *they* use their account, but can they affect the "system"? i.e. What the computer does in their absence, and how other users use it? Sure, I can stuff up my .bash* files, and make it impossible for me to use my account properly. But the next person to log on isn't using my account, and isn't affected by my mangled .bash* files. The question is can I do something to my personal files that isn't restricted to my own use of a system? -- (This box runs FC5, my others run FC4 & FC6, in case that's important to the thread.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
