response 25 of 56:

May 11 11:32 UTC 2003

I think it's mainly for accountability -- knowing which root
did what.  And to give each person with root privileges their own
"root" directory.

There are a number of administrative tasks that entail modifying
certain files and directories but don't require full root access.
So far that's been handled via special accounts and groups -- for
example, there's the "cfadm" account for the conference administrator
and the "partyadm" account for the party administrator.  "Sudo"
might be a better tool for managing that.  I don't think we have it
on the current Grex, but we certainly will when we move to OpenBSD.

I'm really glad to see folks expressing interest in doing staff work.
Some of the folks speaking up are ones that have been in the back of
my mind as potential staff material.

response 27 of 56:

May 12 03:39 UTC 2003

Regarding #22; So far as I can see, all of the *oot accounts are
functionally equivalent to root.  Sudo gives you more fine-grained
control over access to priviledged functions, and does logging.  I don't
see anything about the *oot accounts that tells you who did what.

Regarding #23; Yeah, I think you're right.  We did a lot of that stuff in
req and face to face meetings on a blackboard.  It wasn't as formal as in
industry, but served the purpose well enough.  It's probably impractical
for grex.

Regarding #24 and #25; The thing about home directories I guess I can
kind of see; sudo would do away with the need for that.  But logging or
auditing; it doesn't seem like it would help out much.  I guess if each
root account had a history file, it might; but sudo would fix that by
logging to a central place.  Otherwise, there's not much of an audit trail
to follow.  That is, I don't see how one can tell which root did what.

In general, I like the idea of moving seperate administrative tasks to
other accounts and/or groups.  I think it's a good way to partition the
access space.

Regarding #26; So, what happens now?  I think four or five people have
either volunteered or been volunteered for staff.  What kind of turn
around time are we looking at?

response 29 of 56:

May 12 13:01 UTC 2003

Dan's suggestion is good.  Using 'sudo' for root tasks should be 
considered for the next Grex, at very least.  It solves a lot of tricky 
problems.  You can even restrict people to being able to run some 
programs as root but not others.

response 31 of 56:

May 24 23:25 UTC 2003

I wanted to restart this item; has any traction happened on this?  It seems
like it's important enough not to let slip through the cracks.

response 33 of 56:

May 25 02:11 UTC 2003

The usual procedure is for staff to discuss staff candidates at a (closed to
the public) staff meeting.  We should really have one of those, sometime soon,
to discuss the next steps on the next grex, and other issues.  Board approval
is then needed to formally add people to staff.  So there is going to be a
bit of a bureaucratic time delay.

In the meantime, candidates may like to make themselves useful.  Participate
in the discussions in garage.  I'll give people likely to have a contribution
non-root accounts on the new Grex machine (Dan, for instance, has run some
benchmarks there).

People interested in being staff might help us in giving us a clue as to what
kind of role they see for themselves.

response 35 of 56:

May 26 00:30 UTC 2003

Some staff don't read the conferences, some staff don't read email, some staff
don't attend meetings.  Any medium works, if only you can get people there.

response 37 of 56:

Jun 5 02:55 UTC 2003

One thing that occurs to me is that it might be useful to have a clear list
of who wants to be on staff before the next staff meeting (whenever that is).
It would certainly make the discussion a bit easier if we were clear on who
we were talking about and what capacity they were interested in serving on
staff.

If people post here, or send email to someone (not staff@grex.org - that's
really only read once a week by srw) if you prefer not to make a big public
noise.

I think the following people have made noises about being interested in
being on staff.

  kip - root staff
  cross - root staff
  other - non-root staff
  carson - dunno
  gelinas - dunno

I've had time to talk to kip about this.  I've talked to many of the others
about many other things, but not about this.

If Dan is actually interested in working on staff, I'd be interested in
hearing how he sees this working.  Neither strong opinions on how things
should be done, nor living too far away to be able to attend meetings are
disqualifications for being on staff.  We have staff members in each catagory.
But we've never had one in both categories.  Face-to-face meetings are
usually the best way to resolve divergent opinions.  We did manage to converge
pretty well on the discussion of RAID in the garage conference, so perhaps
the problem isn't hopeless, but it does worry me.

response 39 of 56:

Jun 5 03:04 UTC 2003

I want to serve in any capacity needed, up to and including root staff.

response 41 of 56:

Jun 5 08:04 UTC 2003

I hereby wish to appoint  gelinas, carson, and other  as partyadm's.

Can I have another staffer second my recommendation, please?

response 43 of 56:

Jul 5 15:56 UTC 2003

This is a two-parter.

1. I'd like to see cross giv en a position, if he still wants one. He seems
to be a responsible, respectable guy, and to have self-confidence, rahter than
arrogance.

2. I'd like to volunteer to be a staffer. I'm new here, but not new to
UNIX/Linux. I have been running Linux for a total of about 4 years now, tho
my present system is currently a WinXP (a situation i hope to change in the
near future). Aside from anything else, i'd like the following points to be
considered:

When it is available, UNIX/Linux is my primary system. This means i don't just
tinker with it from time to time. I've been known to sit and unalias MDK's
rm and cp, etc. from "rm -i", to avoid making mistakes on other systems and
get too comfortable with rm etc.

I'd like to state upfront that I am in the UK (as  many of you will know
already), with  zero chance of being able to come to the US for the
foreseeable future. On the plus side, I presently have a lot of time i can
devote to GREX, tho i hope this will decrease in future by virtue of getting
a job. However, I don't plan to disappear once in gainful employment.

If there are any jobs that need doing that can be done without root
privileges, i'd be happy to do that. GREX needs people. I'd be honoured to
be one of the people GREX needs.

2a. I'm glad UNIX command spellings don't change depending on what side of
the Atlantic you're on :P

response 45 of 56:

Jul 5 18:48 UTC 2003

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I appreciate it.  However, I would
be remiss if I didn't admit that I *can* be arrogant at times.  :-)

response 47 of 56:

Jul 6 05:59 UTC 2003

Re #45:  Wow, that would be unusual on the Grex staff.

response 49 of 56:

Jul 11 15:53 UTC 2003

I would volunteer to be on staff, cept that I know very little about 
unix :P