--- /dev/null
+#!/bin/python
+#
+# The subu admin is member of all subu users groups, so group rw enables
+# administration of file.
+#
+# Consequently, in the subu environement we may think of the group permissions
+# as 'admin permissions'. We remove x from administrator permissions because the
+# administor does not want to execute user's executables.
+#
+# This script exists because it is possible for users to mess with the subu
+# admin permissions, because they are the same as the user's group
+# permissions. I should instead be using acls instead.
+#
+# Here is a flaw in this approach: when the administrator moves files from, say,
+# Thomas/repo to Thomas/archive, the set gid bit on the archive directory causes
+# the file to to have group ownership of thomas-archive, while the user remains
+# thomas-repo. Now, as the thomas-archive does not own the file thomas-archive
+# may not change the permissions on the file. Compounding this problem, since
+# we cleared the group x bit (except for directories), thomas-archive may not
+# execute the file even if he wants to. Compunding this yet further, the original
+# file owner, who still owns the file, can not change the permissions because
+# the original file owner has no permissions on the directory.
+#
+# ^^ hence the prior owner remains on the transferred file, that is kind of
+# nice, so we know where the file came from - but this is not a good way to keep
+# track of the history of ownership. BSD has a mode where the set UID bit on a
+# directory has an analogous function to the set GID bit, but Linux does not. We
+# do not know if a whole file tree was transferred, we can end up with a
+# mess. The solution seems to be that the admin needs to manually 'chown -R
+# target_user:target_group' the transferred files and assign them to the target
+# user.
+#
+# Another interesting permissions use case is that of the subu repo and subu Lustucru.
+# Lustuctru is a member of group repo. subu repo does not have sudo access. However
+# the Lustucur project uses the chroot command, so it needs it. I did not want to give
+# sudo to all repos projects, so I created subu Lustucru that does have sudo. Lustucru
+# makes use of the repo/Lustucru files by being in the repo group. Now the repo group
+# has two purposes, one being admin, and one to give group members access to files. This
+# is not going to work because the admin set the mode bits to turn off x. I.e. there
+# are conflicts between what the admin wants as a group member and what subu Lustucru wants
+# as a group member.
+#
+# modes changes occur on the symbolic links directly, i.e. this script
+# does not follow sym links.
+#
+# We start by clearing all mode bits that we might want cleared. Then
+# we set mode bits we know we want.
+
+import sys
+import os
+import stat
+
+def mode_clear(mode):
+ return mode & ~(stat.S_IROTH | stat.S_IWOTH | stat.S_IXOTH | stat.S_IXGRP)
+
+# files
+# user is as found
+# administrator is given rw permissions
+#
+def mode_file(mode):
+ mode = mode_clear(mode)
+ return mode | stat.S_IRGRP | stat.S_IWGRP
+
+# directories
+# administrator is given rwx, and set gid so that files made in the directory
+# will be made in the user's group, which the administrator is a member.
+#
+def mode_dir(mode):
+ mode = mode_clear(mode)
+ return mode | stat.S_IRGRP | stat.S_IWGRP | stat.S_IXGRP | stat.S_ISGID
+
+# By default os.walk does not follow symlinks, so dn will be a directory not a
+# link to one. stat follows symlinks, lstat does not, so we use lstat
+#
+exclude = set(['.cache' ,'.dbus' ,'.ssh' ,'.gnupg'])
+for darg in sys.argv[1:]:
+ if os.path.isdir(darg):
+ for dn, dnp1s, files in os.walk(darg):
+ dnp1s[:] = [d for d in dnp1s if d not in exclude]
+ dn_mode = os.lstat(dn).st_mode
+ if not stat.S_ISDIR(dn_mode):
+ print("os.walk returned a non directory for dn, strange, ignoring it.")
+ else:
+ os.chmod(dn ,mode_dir(dn_mode))
+ for f in files:
+ f_path = "/".join([dn ,f])
+ f_mode = os.lstat(f_path).st_mode
+ os.chmod(f_path ,mode_file(f_mode) ,follow_symlinks=False)
+
+
# must have command user-stem
# user-stem is in the system repo
#
-# currently this is setup to be run by any user who has sudo - it doesn't have to be run by the user-admin account; though chances are it will be.
+# currently this is setup to be run by any user who has sudo - it doesn't have
+# to be run by the user-admin account; though chances are it will be.
#
-# userdel -r deletes both the /var/spool/mail/user and the user's home directory. We don't want to delete the old data just in case there
-# is something important there. However we can not leve the old /var/spool/mail/user file under /var/spool/mail in case another subu is
-# created later with the same name. Hence we will move the /var/spool/mail/user file into the users home directory. We will give ownership
-# of the old home directory to the admin.
+# userdel -r deletes both the /var/spool/mail/user and the user's home
+# directory. We don't want to delete the old data just in case there is
+# something important there. However we can not leave the old
+# /var/spool/mail/user file under /var/spool/mail in case another subu is
+# created later with the same name. Hence we will move the /var/spool/mail/user
+# file into the users home directory. We will give ownership of the old home
+# directory to the admin.
#
-# I have run into a problem that subu users do not inherit the MAIL variable, I wouldn't trust it anyway. I do not know if userdel -r
-# references the MAIL variable. I will hard code a local variable to /var/sppol/mail. This must be changed for systems that put the mail spool
-# file eleswhere.
+# I have run into a problem that subu users do not inherit the MAIL variable, I
+# wouldn't trust it anyway. I do not know if userdel -r references the MAIL
+# variable. I will hard code a local variable to /var/spool/mail. This must be
+# changed for systems that put the mail spool file eleswhere.
#
+# It seems that upon upgrade to Fedora 36 it stopped making a /var/spool/mail
+# file for a new user. Anyway I am getting errors on that.file not existing, so
+# added a conditional for if /var/spool/mail/user file
+
#set -x
subu=$1
subu_username="$stem-$subu"
admin_username="$stem-admin"
-subu_home="/home/$stem/$subu"_root
+subu_home="/home/$stem/$subu"
archive_suffix=";1"
archive_home="$subu_home$archive_suffix"
mail_source_dir="/var/spool/mail"
mail_source_file="$mail_source_dir/$subu_username"
mail_target_file="$subu_home/mail_spool"
+if ! id "$subu_username" &>/dev/null; then
+ echo "no such user"
+ exit 1
+fi
+
if [ -e "$archive_home" ]; then
echo "there is already a saved directory for a deleted subu with this name, move this out of the way first: $archive_home"
exit 1
exit 1
fi
-sudo killall --signal 5 --wait --user "$subu_username"
-sudo mv "$mail_source_file" "$mail_target_file"
+sudo killall --signal 5 --wait --user "$subu_username" && true
+
+if [ -e "$mail_source_file" ]; then
+ sudo mv "$mail_source_file" "$mail_target_file"
+fi
sudo chmod -R go-rwx "$subu_home"
sudo chown -R "$admin_username":"$admin_username" "$subu_home"
mv "$subu_home" "$archive_home"
sudo groupdel -f "$subu_username"
sudo userdel "$subu_username"
+# common to follow up with rm -r and get an error that gvfs can not be deleted
+# (probably better to move it trash or tmp than rm -r, and let the system clean it up later)
+# rather surprising as we did a kill all on its processes
+gvfs="$archive_home/.cache/gvfs"
+if [ -e "$gvfs" ]; then
+ sudo umount "$gvfs"
+fi
+
#set +x
projects / subu / commitdiff
