Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root

NeXT Computer, Inc. -> NEXTSTEP / OPENSTEP Software

Title: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: tygre on September 02, 2024, 08:10:21 PM
Hi there!

My apologies if this is a (probably!) a n00b's question: I installed NeXTstep 3.3 with two users: "root" and "me". When logged in as "root", I can remove/add apps in the dock but the dock is "reset" at the next login, while it retains my preferences when "me".

What should I do so that the dock saves the apps as "root"?  ???

Thanks!
Tygre
Title: Re: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: tjallen on September 07, 2024, 09:43:31 AM
Is the root directory / read only? Unlike, say, Linux, root's $HOME is / instead of a subdirectory.
Title: Re: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: tygre on September 10, 2024, 08:52:14 PM
Hi TJallen!

Thanks for your help!
I didn't think about that, so I check and it seems that, yes, "root" as all the rights in "/":

drwxrwxrwt 15 root        1024 Sep 10 18:30 ./
drwxrwxrwt 15 root        1024 Sep 10 18:30 ../
drwxr-xr-x  4 root        1024 Sep 10 18:30 .NeXT/
-rw-r--r--  1 root        2052 Sep  2 21:59 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 root         460 Oct 21  1994 .cshrc
-rw-r--r--  1 root          89 Jul 31  1992 .hidden
-rw-r--r--  1 root         187 Mar 20  1989 .login
-rw-r--r--  1 root          52 Aug  1  1994 .logout
-rw-r--r--  1 root         150 Dec  8  1992 .path
-rw-r--r--  1 root         125 Dec  8  1992 .profile
drwxr-xr-x  3 root        1024 Dec 15  2023 Backup/
drwxr-xr-x 14 root        2048 Sep  1 16:22 BackupSystem/
drwxrwxrwt 12 root        1024 Feb  6  2012 Data/
drwxr-xr-x  3 root        1024 Aug 31 21:13 Library/
drwxrwxrwt 13 root        1024 Nov 12  1994 NEXTSTEP_3.3/
drwxrwxrwt  8 root        1024 Mar  3  1995 NEXTSTEP_Dev_3.3/
dr-xr-xr-x  1 root         512 Sep 10 18:06 Net/
drwxr-xr-x 13 root        1024 Sep  1 16:17 NextAdmin/
drwxr-xr-x 16 root        1024 Sep  1 16:26 NextApps/
drwxr-xr-x 10 root        1024 Mar  3  1995 NextDeveloper/
drwxr-xr-x 23 root        1024 Mar  3  1995 NextLibrary/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root        2048 Sep  2 21:50 bin/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root          11 Feb  5  2012 dev -> private/dev/@
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root          11 Feb  5  2012 etc -> private/etc/@
drwxr-xr-x  6 root        1024 Mar  3  1995 lib/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root        8192 Feb  5  2012 lost+found/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root           9 Feb  5  2012 mach -> $BOOTFILE@
drwxrwxrwx  6 me          1024 Sep  2 13:18 me/
-r--r--r--  1 root      836616 Jul 13  1999 odmach
drwxr-xr-x 12 root        1024 Oct 14  1999 private/
-r--r--r--  1 root      836616 Jul 13  1999 sdmach
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root          11 Feb  5  2012 tmp -> private/tmp/@
drwxr-xr-x 18 root        1024 Mar  3  1995 usr/

Or am I missing something there?

Cheers!
Tygre
Title: Re: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: user217 on September 11, 2024, 03:56:58 AM
You might want to move root's home to /root anyway, just for cleanliness. vipasswd can help with that.
Title: Re: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: stepleton on September 11, 2024, 01:08:58 PM
This doesn't answer your question, but I'd avoid logging in as root, since you don't get second chances with mistakes that root makes. Fortunately, it's easy to do a lot of things in NEXTSTEP without being root: the secret is the Open Sesame service. If you need to run any NEXTSTEP program as root, select it in the file browser, then go to the menu and click Services -> Open Sesame -> Open As Root. You provide the root password in the dialog and presto --- it's a lot like sudo for NeXT apps. You can even get a root shell by starting Terminal.app this way (although the su command works just as well).

I'm sure it's hideously insecure, but if security in 2024 is your concern, you are running the wrong OS!
Title: Re: Apps Not Staying in Dock when Root
Post by: tjallen on September 11, 2024, 05:10:18 PM
Quote from: tygre on September 10, 2024, 08:52:14 PMHi TJallen!

Thanks for your help!
I didn't think about that, so I check and it seems that, yes, "root" as all the rights in "/":

The only other simple thing I'd check is that the files in which the state of the dock are stored are also writable. Other than that, I'm out of ideas. I will say that I logged in as root to a NEXTSTEP machine and the state of the dock is persistent on my machine.

Rhetorica has a good idea to move root's home to /root. I might try that and then make sure that all files are writable by root in that subdirectory.

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