[maemo-developers] becomeroot once again but with password

[From: James Grimwood]

On 21/02/07, Marc Zonzon <marc.zonzon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Then you can login with password as what user you want, root to become root,
> but you can also become a true private user to store moderatly confidential
> information (truly confidential must of course be encrypted).

To become root on my N800 I use ssh and xterm. I installed ssh so I
could contact my other computers, but it's also quite handy doing

ssh root at 127.0.0.1

So you could write a little shell script that did this and run that.
Doesn't require editing any files (which need root access to be able
to do in the first place, and if you can get root then why do you need
to modify the system to become root again? ;-)

If you then create a public and private key the entire thing could be
password free.

Now the hard part is typing in the passwords using the onscreen
keyboard. Entering autogenerated mixed-case passwords is tricky.

As to personal data on my tablet, I treat it not as a multi-user PC,
but in the same way I treat my mobile phone. It's mine, it lives
either in my pocket or on my desk at home. This means if someone has
access to it they've stolen it off me and I have bigger worries than
the fact they know the password for my local IMAP server. A way of
having the user's home directory encrypted would be a useful feature
though.

An extremely useful facility would be the ability to make an image of
my N800's internal flash (think Norton Ghost-type backups) for making
complete backups of it. I like to fiddle with things, and it's such a
pain de-bricking the device and remembering which programs were
installed.
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