Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Allow non root users to edit files owned by root?

[Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org>]

On 2011-12-22 1:00 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
> On 12/22/2011 05:44 PM, Tanstaafl wrote:
>> On 2011-12-20 12:19 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> wrote:
>>> If you allow someone to edit root owned files, you're practically giving
>>> him root access.
>>
>> Well, yeah, but only on those defined files...
>
> root access is global. You can't limit it. root is root, the all
> powerful Unix being. Period :-)

Ummm... then what is the purpose of sudo??

If I add the following line to sudoers:

%sudoroot       ALL=(root)NOPASSWD:/bin/chmod /var/www/localhost/htdocs/*

Are you saying that this does NOT limit anyone in the sudoroot group to 
*only* be able to run the chmod command, and only on files located in 
/var/www/localhost/htdocs?

> Then you put the files in a special group and make them g+w, and add the
> affected users to that group. Then they will able to write to those
> files. If you want to give them write access to a whole directory, you
> put the directory in the group and make it g+w. This is how it's
> traditionally been done in Unix for ages, and it's extremely easy to set
> up.

Yeah, I think I got a little tunnel vision trying to do this with sudo.