partition access password

sdibaja

I have a brand new system (Mate), installed alongside other systems.
I am still trying to figure out how Solus works.
with Caja I find that I access and read/write to Any and All of the other partitions.
for Me this is a huge security risk.

Is this a fault I created or is Solus designed to be this way?

Thanks, Peter

Staudey

sdibaja Depends on what you mean by "all the other partitions". Things like your ESP or swap should be hidden by default, but of course regular partitions are read/writable, and I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be that way.

sdibaja

Staudey
hypothetical example: grandson is visiting, sees my laptop on the coffee table, asks to use it to check his class schedule.
no problem.

he sees "some folder" in the file manager, clicks on it
Without a password: oops, that's all Greek to me, and leaves after he inadvertently modified or deleted something.
With Password: nope, can't go there, moves on.

could have been another operating system, my banking records, **** collection, whatever.

same applies in an office setting...

====
so, if the Current operating system and or files are damaged or deleted, no problem.
worst case, reinstall and recover all data... one hour lost.
everything of unique value is archived on separate partitions on a different physical drive... the ones that Should require password to access

nolan

by default, file encryption is not set, but there are tools in the repos that can do some things like it, veracrypt is one of them.

tuxlover4

if you are talking about a few files try veracrypt it is in the software center. if you need to protect an entire partition say a seperate partition for data that is other matter. You may need to reinstall Solus and during installation chose use llvm and encrypt and password protect your drive. what ever you do Do NOT forget the password because you won't be able to access your files. I sadly speak from experience. Good luck

sdibaja

I believe I may have found a solution
create a new user with the "standard" permissions

sdibaja

nope, that works
the new "standard" user is required to use a password as expected
but logging out from the primary user account kills syncthing
so I can't have my normal services running in the background

So... can I change the primary user to "standard" and still perform root operations with the old root password?
maybe...

sdibaja

answer: yes for the few things I tried
perhaps I should just reinstall and start over and see if I can create a "standard" user and also set a root password.

some other day. for now I have work to do

sdibaja

I made a new fresh install
I called the user: root

no joy. there in no User shown in the login window. not able to specify root and log in

failed experiment I give up. I will now scrub all of the solus specific partitions.

thank so the feedback

PS: my thought was to Later in an operating system, create a "standard" user for daily use and use my new root password as needed

tflovik

sdibaja You cant call the username root on any linux systems because that user already exists, and you wont be able to choose root user at login as a safety measure.

sdibaja

new idea
fresh install
user: roo
real name: root
now when I boot the login shows "root" as user and accepts the password
I then created a "standard" user for daily use.
when needed I use my new "root" password when requested... it asks for "roo" password LOL
at this point is seems to work OK, software center was fine with my root/roo password
adding my lean-conky was painless

running syncthing as my user is giving me fits
I will troubleshoot that later