changing startx

[blobaugh]

I was wondering if for a little more security the commands startx and X could be changed? I know that seems a little extreme. I am just wondering if it can be done and how easily. That would be a great idea for insecure public access computers.

[lackdub]

i could be wrong but I think you could just rename the binary files

[Hayl]

startx is just a shell script.

[blobaugh]

What about the X command?

[Hayl]

Originally posted by blobaugh
What about the X command?

it's a binary file.

you can always reaname it back if it breaks anything.

[zdude255]

Since the source is availible, you could always edit that.


Oherwise a symlink would suffice.

[hop-frog]

Originally posted by zdude255
Since the source is availible, you could always edit that.
agreed

Oherwise a symlink would suffice.
but that would not prevent access to the original script

I was wondering if for a little more security the commands startx and X could be changed? I know that seems a little extreme. I am just wondering if it can be done and how easily. That would be a great idea for insecure public access computers.
I don't know that changing startx would be secure enough. If a person glances at the screen while you type the alternative command in, they will know how to access X.

I think you can change the permissions so that the 'normal' user can't access X. You could create a new user account that you would have to login to and it is the only user account that has the permissions to access X other than root. If you have SuSE I can explain to you how to do this with YaST2, but I don't know about changing this in other distros.