[buug] Re: Jackpot!

[Rick Moen]

(By the way, please stop setting the Reply-To header.  Thanks.)

begin Zeke Krahlin quotation:
> --- Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

>> But, if you have root access on a Linux box, if only your laptop
>> running Linux-Mandrake, then you _are_ by definition a system
>> administrator!
> 
> Each client that now uses Linux is a "user", not administrator. I am
> the administrator for each of their stand-alone boxes. I do not give
> any of my clients root access...they don't even know the password for
> root.

That is an outstatnding model.  I've been advocating this approach for 
years, for naive users on Linux boxes, but you're the first person I 
know who actually has done it.  Congratulations!

Yes, in _that_ model, the Linux user is not a sysadmin.  (You'll please
note that I properly qualified my statement, in that respect.)

> Considering all the nuisances that Windoze is, my clients have no more
> problems or questions in Linux, than they ever had in Windoze. In fact,
> they seem to be considerably less.

My objections to that model of computing _mostly_ evaporate when there
is someone capable exercising the root privilege for them, as is the 
case here.  As I said, this is the model I've been _trying_ to encourage
for years (see my virus essays within http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/):
It allows you to present to the users (and maintain) a tailored 
environment that meets their individual needs, and gives them exactly
as much access to the underlying machine as those needs require, no more
and no less.

May I recommend some tools?  First and foremost, SSH (meaning the OpenSSH 
implementation, these days), to give you secure remote administration
abilities.  It also automatically forwards X over the secure channel.
 
Second, kibitz from Dan Libes at National Institute of Standards and
Technology.  (Libes's home page:
http://www.mel.nist.gov/msidstaff/libes/)  kibitz is implemented as an
Expect script (Libes created Expect), an is included in every
distribution of the Expect utility.

Expect allows you to remotely "type over the shoulder" of someone you're
trying to help.  From a manpage Web-ified at
http://howto.tucows.com/man/man1/kibitz.1.html:

* A novice user can ask an expert user for help.  Using kibitz, the
expert can see what the user is doing, and offer advice or show how to
do it right.  

* By running kibitz and then starting a full-screen
editor, people may carry out a conversation, retaining the ability to
scroll backwards, save the entire conversation, or even edit it while in
progress. 

* People can team up on games, document editing, or other cooperative
tasks where each person has strengths and weaknesses that complement one
another. 

Third, script.  It allows you to log to disk screen output of any
(console) session.  You can have your users run script to capture error
messages and other useful output, then mail it to you for examination.
This even helps with X applications if they have been started from a
shell prompt (e.g., "kcalendar &"), in that stderr and other useful
diagnostic information will be sent to that console.

More later, since we're starting to get guests for the CABAL meeting.

-- 
Cheers,                                      Right to keep and bear
Rick Moen                                  Haiku shall not be abridged
rick (at) linuxmafia.com                      Or denied.  So there.