February 2009 - Wine-Devel - list.winehq.org

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Ben Klein

Just realised something ... 2009/2/10 Ben Klein <shacklein(a)gmail.com>: > In the case of "sudo wine" whatever, $HOME is the originating user's > home directory, and `id -u` is 0. So this means that root-owned files > will appear in $HOME/.wine (assuming no WINEPREFIX is set). > > In the case that there is already a .wine owned by the original user > before running "sudo wine" whatever, wine will complain about ownership of .wine. It must be that the cases I've seen, the user has changed the ownership of .wine, but not recursively. With that correction in mind, the rest is a valid use case, but obscure and more like user error than an issue with wine itself. > and that user then runs an > application as normal user after the permissions have been stuffed > with, it *can* (but probably won't) cause weird problems with some > files (possibly including registry) not being correctly written to. > The only reason why an existing .wine is required for this case is > because of the UID owner test in wine. <snip> > Should we worry about this problem? Probably not, because a "chmod > u-w" on a few files would have the same effect. The most important and > useful thing to attempt is proper education. Essentially "don't run > wine as root or using sudo" for all the various reasons. > > Also note that there is little-to-no reason to run wine as root, and > that is even further reduced under kernel 2.6.24 and higher where > POSIX File Capabilities were introduced. Should we prevent it? No, > that's not in keeping with *nix style. Should we provide a warning? > Couldn't hurt. > > Biggest problem I see at this stage with providing a warning for > running as root is, should wine continue or stop on such a warning? In > other words, if I trigger the "running as root" warning, should I have > to confirm that it's what I want to do somehow, or should I get the > warning but wine continue to run?

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by James Mckenzie

Aurimas Fišeras <aurimas(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Sent: Feb 9, 2009 7:45 AM >To: James Mckenzie <jjmckenzie51(a)earthlink.net> >Cc: wine-devel(a)winehq.org >Subject: Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend) > >James Mckenzie wrote: >> Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org> wrote: >>[...] >> New wine installation: >> >> su (no dash so root's environment is not picked up) >> wine notepad >> install various programs and use them. >> exit >> >> User logs in a second time after learning how to properly use Wine. >> Attempt to do anything with Wine in user space. Cannot do due to permissions problems. >> >> The solution: >> >> sudo rm -rf .wine >No, the solution is >sudo chown -R user:user .wine Correct. However, this is not being given as the solution. Also, if the user is on an alternate wine prefix this would change to: sudo chown -R <username>:users $WINEPREFIX Is this in the FAQ somewhere? James McKenzie

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Ben Klein

2009/2/10 Steve Brown <sbrown7(a)umbc.edu>: > On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, James Mckenzie wrote: > >> Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org> wrote: >>> Please explain how running as root will screw their Wine directory. If >>> that's really true, surely it should be fixed instead of simply throwing >>> out a warning and proceeding. >> >> New wine installation: >> >> su (no dash so root's environment is not picked up) This would not cause a problem, as $HOME is set to the home directory for root. The problem is mostly when the user runs wine (often winecfg specifically) using sudo. In the case of "sudo wine" whatever, $HOME is the originating user's home directory, and `id -u` is 0. So this means that root-owned files will appear in $HOME/.wine (assuming no WINEPREFIX is set). In the case that there is already a .wine owned by the original user before running "sudo wine" whatever, and that user then runs an application as normal user after the permissions have been stuffed with, it *can* (but probably won't) cause weird problems with some files (possibly including registry) not being correctly written to. The only reason why an existing .wine is required for this case is because of the UID owner test in wine. >> wine notepad >> install various programs and use them. >> exit >> >> User logs in a second time after learning how to properly use Wine. >> Attempt to do anything with Wine in user space. Cannot do due to permissions problems. >> >> The solution: >> >> sudo rm -rf .wine > > Wouldn't a better solution be `sudo chown -r me:me .wine` ? This would, in most cases, fix it and have no side-effects. But if an application was able to run as normal user when some permissions are set as root-owned in .wine, it could cause problems. Should we worry about this problem? Probably not, because a "chmod u-w" on a few files would have the same effect. The most important and useful thing to attempt is proper education. Essentially "don't run wine as root or using sudo" for all the various reasons. Also note that there is little-to-no reason to run wine as root, and that is even further reduced under kernel 2.6.24 and higher where POSIX File Capabilities were introduced. Should we prevent it? No, that's not in keeping with *nix style. Should we provide a warning? Couldn't hurt. Biggest problem I see at this stage with providing a warning for running as root is, should wine continue or stop on such a warning? In other words, if I trigger the "running as root" warning, should I have to confirm that it's what I want to do somehow, or should I get the warning but wine continue to run?

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Austin English

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:45 AM, James Mckenzie <jjmckenzie51(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > My example is that a user logs in and installs a program as root because they were told that it 'runs better' as root. When it is discovered to not be true, the user then attempts to run in user space only to be advised they have no access to the program. This should've been fixed long ago, as Alexandre said. If not, can you give an example so we can fix that? That's a separate issue from the patch at hand, which is just a basic warning for those installing and running applications in root's .wine. -- -Austin

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by James Mckenzie

Chris Howe <mrmessiah(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Sent: Feb 9, 2009 8:06 AM >To: wine-devel(a)winehq.org >Subject: Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend) > >It would seem to me that the right place for this to go would be >not in Wine itself but in the likes of Crossover and Cedega - the >"distributions" and value added apps built around Wine. > >I can't reconcile in my head the case where you have a newbie >running the latest GIT of Wine needing this kind of thing at all. > Newbies don't run GITs, they download a prebuild version of Wine from a repository. Thus, this 'fix' would not appear to them until the release of 1.1.15 at the earliest. >Either they want the power and compatibility of the latest GIT >version, and all that that entails, including the potential for doing >things they didn't intend if they run it as root, or they want some >newbie friendly environment that seizes back the reins a little >and stops them doing that. > All versions of Wine that I've run into have the ability to run as root. This is inherent as a part of any UNIX program. What we are discussing is that running as root may make your system vulnerable and may cause problems later when Wine is run in user space. My example is that a user logs in and installs a program as root because they were told that it 'runs better' as root. When it is discovered to not be true, the user then attempts to run in user space only to be advised they have no access to the program. The solution given is to remove the user space Wine directories and to start over. The user gets upset, sometimes with implied violence, and then abandons Wine. What happens is that this user gets on other areas and talks bad about Wine. Thus, Wine gets another black eye to overcome. The idea is to warn users that problems may be encountered if they run Wine as root. If they continue on, it is on them. A message box or warning on the screen, shown one time, is all most newbies need to come back to the forum and ask how to do something. Experts will charge on and if they mess up their system, they know how to fix it. James McKenzie

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Austin English

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org> wrote: > James Mckenzie <jjmckenzie51(a)earthlink.net> writes: > >> It does not hurt anything but Wine's reputation. I don't know, but >> the phrase "I would rather be run over rather than run down" does >> apply here. In other words, we should be getting positive responses >> to user experiences, rather than dealing with newbies having to delete >> their .wine directories because they ran Wine as root without setting >> to the root environment. > > Again, please demonstrate the exact sequence that leads to an actual > problem, not just vague hearsay of people reporting problems that may or > may not have anything to do with this. > > I'm all for being more friendly to newbies, and that's precisely why I > want to solve the actual problem (if there is one), not just print a > warning and then tell them "it's your fault for not heeding the > warning". We all know that people ignore warnings, so it doesn't add any > user-friendliness at all, just the opposite. To list as well, sorry Alexandre: That wasn't the case I was trying to warn against. I was trying to warn against running wine as root in general, unless you know the consequences. I see people being reminded several times a week of this in the forums (granted, less since we disabled using sudo). If we don't mind new users running as root who don't know better, then we should delete that from the FAQ, and quit recommending against it. The fact is we don't recommend it, because it has the potential to cause harm, and the majority of the time, is not needed (especially for those asking on the forum). However, we DO NOT want users running as root, as we've made it damn hard to do so, but as the adage goes, "Fool proof systems do not take into account the ingenuity of fools." A simple warning, printed in the terminal (at least on the first run of a prefix), should increase the foolproof-ness of the system (of course, still not 100%). -- -Austin

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Steve Brown

On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, James Mckenzie wrote: > Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org> wrote: >> Please explain how running as root will screw their Wine directory. If >> that's really true, surely it should be fixed instead of simply throwing >> out a warning and proceeding. > > New wine installation: > > su (no dash so root's environment is not picked up) > wine notepad > install various programs and use them. > exit > > User logs in a second time after learning how to properly use Wine. > Attempt to do anything with Wine in user space. Cannot do due to permissions problems. > > The solution: > > sudo rm -rf .wine Wouldn't a better solution be `sudo chown -r me:me .wine` ? Steve Brown sbrown7(a)umbc.edu

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by Alexandre Julliard

James Mckenzie <jjmckenzie51(a)earthlink.net> writes: > It does not hurt anything but Wine's reputation. I don't know, but > the phrase "I would rather be run over rather than run down" does > apply here. In other words, we should be getting positive responses > to user experiences, rather than dealing with newbies having to delete > their .wine directories because they ran Wine as root without setting > to the root environment. Again, please demonstrate the exact sequence that leads to an actual problem, not just vague hearsay of people reporting problems that may or may not have anything to do with this. I'm all for being more friendly to newbies, and that's precisely why I want to solve the actual problem (if there is one), not just print a warning and then tell them "it's your fault for not heeding the warning". We all know that people ignore warnings, so it doesn't add any user-friendliness at all, just the opposite. -- Alexandre Julliard julliard(a)winehq.org

Feb. 9, 2009

Re: ntdll: add a warning about running wine as root (resend)

by David Gerard

2009/2/9 Chris Howe <mrmessiah(a)gmail.com>: > I can't reconcile in my head the case where you have a newbie > running the latest GIT of Wine needing this kind of thing at all. It's frequently newbies running the WineHQ versions. Again, I suggest reading the user forum to get an idea of why this keeps being suggested. - d.

Feb. 9, 2009

Fwd: EVE online losing its Linux Client

by Andrew Fenn

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:22 PM, James Mckenzie <jjmckenzie51(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > Since there is not a great Wine audience for the Mac, the Eve Online Mac client should not be abandoned just for that reason. The real reason may be that there is not a great deal of demand for an on-line game interface for the Mac. Most Mac users loath having to use X11 for any purpose, and a game tops the list. I'm pretty sure they're not abandoning the mac client which has shown growth compared to the Linux client.

Feb. 9, 2009