[Techtalk] Protecting spouse, kids from each other and limiting access

[Alvin Goats]

>Have you considered dumping the munchkins into virtual machines?  Stick
>them in there, and they only have access to what you explicitly give them.

>This would effectively decouple class 1 from the other 3, which should
>simplify the problem somewhat.

>As for what to use for a VM, see http://user-mode-linux.sf.net


I was not aware of the virtual machines. I'm checking into it as it
would help me with some experimental tinkering as well. I've bombed my
system a time or two playing with things :) They just don't make a lot
of stuff for physikers and we do tend to break things on occasion...


>> 3) poweruser: basically me. Access to all directories/devices,
>> including those blocked to everyone else. Essentially "root" in safe
>> mode. All window managers available.


> It's not clear to me how to make a poweruser that's different from root
> without a fair amount of work.

Ummm, maybe more like 'poweruser' is 'users' with access to all the
blocked directories and devices to 'users'. I can do backups and such
that users can't abort (except by shutting off power), do compiles in
blocked directories they can't see. 

Thanks!

Alvin