[lug] Linux Single User/Embeded (HELP?)

Sebastian Sobolewski ( Zeb ) spsobole at mindless.com
Tue May 2 13:49:39 MDT 2000


Hi All,

	Where I work I've written a software package for controlling some custom 
Hard Drive test equipment and I've ran into an interesting problem.  The 
Application is TEXT mode based and requires operator keyboard input for 
control. I have the same code base compiling and running under Windows, Dos 
and Linux. In dos I use a simple BATCH file to start it up at boot.  Under 
windows It's executed using the "run" registry entry.
	What I'm trying to figure out how to make this thing work right under 
Linux.  For now I hacked the Run Level 1 scripts to run the app, but I 
really don't want it running as root.  What I really want is for Linux to 
automagically login as a user with permissions to only run this app, while 
still allowing someone else to switch to a different virtual console and be 
able to login as root without disturbing the app. (AKA in multi-user 
mode)  I need other services like http running for some remote access 
stuff, as well as needing to be able to mount remote SMB shares on that 
computer.  Security (As in someone hacking the box) is really not much of 
an issue since the computer will be running in an industrial environment 
with a controlled network connection. (No outside world link)  I just want 
to make sure an operator doesn't accidental nuke the OS.

	Has anyone here done anything like this before? Is there a clean way of 
doing this? I looked at the HOW-TO-S and they don't cover anything like 
this :(.

	If I can't get this to work I'll be forced to use WinNT and I'm not a big 
fan of NT's stability, especially since this equipment will be working 24/7.


-Sebastian





More information about the LUG mailing list