Arch Linux

kYd

Member

Registered: 2009-01-20

Posts: 78

Struggling to understand systemd groups/permissions.

I've recently switched over to a pure systemd setup, and I don't quite understand how systemd deals with group permissions.
From the wiki, it states:

Adding your user to groups (optical, audio, scanner, etc.) is not necessary for most use cases with systemd. The groups can even cause some functionality to break.

If, just as an example, I wanted to allow one user to control certain network aspects (without sudo), I used to add them to the "network" group, so how now does systemd replace this functionality?

Also, to give a user access to a passworded sudo, I'd add them to the "wheel" group as many do, but it seems doing so now gives the user permissions via systemctl to shutdown/reboot and stop/start certain services, and maybe other things, without having to sudo and enter a password.
I might be missing something, but I think that this should be given a big mention somewhere as, AFAIK, many people use the "wheel" group for the same purpose (to allow sudo), but probably are not aware of the extra "functionality" it now gives.

Thanks.

Last edited by kYd (2012-11-20 21:05:43)

drcouzelis

Member

From: Connecticut, USA

Registered: 2009-11-09

Posts: 4,092

Website

Re: Struggling to understand systemd groups/permissions.

Now that you mention it, I don't really understand it either. Because of that quote from the wiki I DIDN'T add myself to those groups when I upgraded to systemd and... nothing worked, until I added myself to those groups.

I may have been mistaken, since I didn't into it too much, but I agree that it is a little confusing.

loafer

Member

From: the pub

Registered: 2009-04-14

Posts: 1,772

Re: Struggling to understand systemd groups/permissions.

There's this thread:

https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail … 31794.html

And this:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=151561

I think you are allowed to reboot/shutdown if you are the only logged in user.

---

All men have stood for freedom...
For freedom is the man that will turn the world upside down.
Gerrard Winstanley.

rodyaj

Member

Registered: 2009-10-13

Posts: 54

Re: Struggling to understand systemd groups/permissions.

In that mailing list thread:

... you need to check that your user session is considered active by logind for it to apply the ACL's to your devices.

How do I make an active session on a console other than the one I logged in on at boot? When I start e.g., games on a separate X display, the ACLs are ignored and breakage happens.

Last edited by rodyaj (2012-11-20 21:40:41)