/dev/chat

12:57 AM

Hey >3K rep SO users, can someone send this to oblivion?

5:57 PM

Good evening!

I am fairly new to Linux and I have question regarding users. When I use the useradd command I don't specify a password. I must use the passwd afterwards. Does this mean that the user is disabled until it is done?

slm

6:13 PM

@LuckyLuke - yes they're effectively disabled since they don't have a password to gain access to their account.

LuckyLuke

6:53 PM

hello

anybody here?

slm

@LuckyLuke - see my comments on the Q

LuckyLuke

yep

slm

Not able to talk at length, in and out.

LuckyLuke

ok

Do I use sudo postgres then?

slm

no, sudo is the command to elevate your credentials. You give it commands you want to run. In this case the command is "su - postgres"

LuckyLuke

7:08 PM

If I do su - postgres it asks for a password?

slm

su - postgres by itself requires postgres' password. When you do `sudo su - postgres it requires your password to prove that you're you.

once you prove it's you, then it will "remember" this for like 5 minutes, and then ask you again.

LuckyLuke

Sorry for asking a dumb question now: But why does sudo su - postgres work? Is it because I prove I have root access?

slm

you have sudo rights to run commands. Look in the file /etc/sudoers. Your username is listed there as having rights, most likely the ability to do anything as root.

sudo more /etc/sudoers

A line like this: saml ALL=(ALL) ALL, where saml is the user name

it says I have all rights to run anything

man sudoers for more info

LuckyLuke

Yes

slm

@LuckyLuke - if that wasn't clear to you feel free to add some details to one of the answers making it clearer. It's likely not clear to others that will happen upon your Q&A

LuckyLuke

7:18 PM

I am unsure if I understand why sudo su - postgres require my password instead of the postgres password. Is the end result that I run the command as postgres or root?

Braiam

you must read it as separated process..

sudo = you become root
as root you execute su to change user to postgres

is like doing sudo -i then su - postgress

just that with sudo you can do it all in a single line

slm

I have to leave, if you have further Q's post them here and either I'll get them later or someone else can.

When you run commands via sudo you're root, you just don't know root password.
ex:
$ sudo whoami
root

LuckyLuke

7:53 PM

@Braiam Thank you

@slm Thank you

I think I understand it a little better

I will try to read some more on it too

strugee

9:29 PM

@Braiam tosses nickel at you yes, here's a nickel, kid. get yourself a real shell. go zsh.

slm

Uh I don't use zsh

Braiam

@strugee the worse that I've seen is the Ctrl + arrows doesn't work :(

strugee

that was a thin reference to the Dilbert comic strip on Unix, btw

@Braiam what were you expecting them to do? also, the default zsh configuration is much more dismal than bash's

you should try oh-my-zsh. github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh, if there's no typos

honestly zsh is crazy awesome. the only feature it doesn't have is smallness. it's so clever, it will learn hostnames you type in front of ssh and autocomplete them in the future

slm

Bash does that too, the host names in front of commands

I use that every day

scp ssh etc. they all have hostnames in front of them

I seem to remember going down the zsh road before and being like meh, I know there are all the extras that Gilles and Stephane tout wrt wildcards and I appreciate that but unlearning Bash at this point is more work, IMO

strugee

9:46 PM

@slm yeah, I get that. tbh, I mostly like it for the community frameworks (e.g. oh-my-zsh). I've never really bothered to customize my shell manually...

slm

If it's a machine that you control you can use zsh, but I deal with a daily barage of other OSes and distros etc. and they all typically go with Bash as the default in /etc/passwd, so my hands a little forced in that regard.

strugee

the other thing I like is that when you tab-complete it doesn't leave turds on your console and then give you a second prompt

slm

@strugee - yeah I used to customize my env. but then I'd go through an update and it would all be lost so going w/ the defaults is just easier. Even using aliases I find vane attempts b/c I'll be on some other machine that won't have them and then I"m like WTF was that command?

but I realize I'm making excuses for a subpar shell in comparison, but I deal w/ Windows too and it's a subpar OS

2

strugee

I never really work with systems that aren't my own but yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. I've never seen any distro with zsh as the default, and there's probably a reason for that

@slm that's why I version-control my dotfiles. I work with about 4-6 installs on different occasions, never have any problems. I keep everything in ~/config and then symlink everything

slm

That's really the major reason to me, and why we get so many Q's here too, think of the more elegant solutions that Steph. or Gilles put out wrt to the wildcard expansions and we have to bend through hoops with sed/awk/etc. when the shell could simply do it

strugee

9:49 PM

wrt Windows: same. I use Cygwin.

slm

@strugee - might be worth a Q&A for you to write that up

strugee

@slm write what up?

slm

I just scp and use Sparkleshare to maintain my files that I rsync from there

your setup, how you do it

strugee

ah

slm

i'd be interested

I use etckeeper for systems but neglect my homedirs

strugee

9:50 PM

something like "how do I sync dotfiles with version control?"

slm

yeah w/ a slant to homedir files

answer it with your setup

Gilles

I think we already have this question

I still have my dotfiles under cvs, but I recommend a dcvs to anyone starting now

I'll probably switch in the next decade or so

slm

I think it might be here as well, but search for it first anyway, if it's not there then ask, otherwise add your answer to that Q if it does and doesn't have your A

strugee

@slm yeah I've used etckeeper on two systems - one an Ubuntu Server, and another an Arch box that replaced the Ubuntu Server box. it was OK on Ubuntu but on Arch it killed, since there aren't hooks in pacman

slm

Yeah that's the trouble w/ it

strugee

9:59 PM

@Gilles were you thinking of this:

48

Q: Tips for putting ~ under source control

I want to put my home directory (~) under source control (git, in this case), as I have many setting files (.gitconfig, .gitignore, .emacs, etc.) in there I would like to carry across machines, and having them in git would make it nice for retrieving them. My main machine is my MacBook, and th...

?

@slm: zsh will suggest corrections to commands too e.g. sl (if you don't have the actual sl installed) gets you "correct sl to ls? [nyae]? "

Gilles

@strugee yes

strugee

ah

slm

@Gilles @terdon - CVS, I still use RCS, I use that for etc and sometimes for home dir items

@strugee CVS, I still use RCS, I use that for etc and sometimes for home dir items

strugee

10:17 PM

looks like other people use my setup, pretty much. I basically have @Gilles' setup here: unix.stackexchange.com/a/1884/29146

except I don't have system-specific folders. I just write portable scripts

slm

@strugee - yeah Gilles approach is how I do it as well.

strugee

e.g. github.com/strugee/dots/blob/master/.zshrc#L56

@slm except you rsync ~/lib or ~/configs or ~/foo, instead of version control, right?

slm

I use several methods, this is one. Depends. At home I generally just rsync the contents since I'm using rcs

at work I use SVN and git for things

but it's all organic, kind of a mess 8-)

but the point is that I keep things backed up and under VCS

things I care about

i've also used dropbox and sparkleshare to get the DB off of the box

strugee

ah, makes sense. i just use git no matter what :)

slm

Yeah if I were to start over I would standardize on that

strugee

10:25 PM

haha the guy who asked that question has 352 rep and all of it is from that question (except for the base 100)

slm

problem is there are many things already in flight over time you start to accumulate all these "tests" of methods

strugee

?

slm

yeah i see ppl here from time to time that have literally 1 Q that makes up all their rep

strugee

do you mean things like "oh, I'll try foo for this project and see how it goes" accumulate?

slm

I mean I've tried many of these methods, RCS, CVS, SVN, GIT, etc. and am currently using all of them in some form, mainly b/c I'm too lazy to switch them out.

yup

strugee

10:26 PM

heh

slm

I love to try things out

but hate to commit

it's a blessing and a curse

strugee

yeah I'm a complete neophile

except with GNOME 3

slm

sometime the experience becomes an anchor

you're only like 14-18, right?

I'm 40, so 30+ yrs. of collecting crap

strugee

yeah I'm 15 so I really like to hear people talk about things they still have from decades ago because then I get to chuckle to myself and say, "that'll never happen to me!"

knowing all the while that, well, of course it will

slm

it always happens, I'm a bit of a packrat so that magnifies the problem

I have several TB's of files on my NAS that are old RPMs tarballs etc. I have literally no idea what they are

strugee

10:38 PM

yeah I have like 25 CDs that I have lying around - a couple Arch images, a bunch of Ubuntu images (some different flavored of the same version), a couple Plan 9 images and some misc stuff

I should get rid of them. but, I won't.

slm

That's how it starts 8-)

I wish I had these resources available when I was 15, you're lucky!

@strugee - You focusing on any particular things or just learning as much as you can?

strugee

11:00 PM

@slm mostly just learning as much as I can. I either want to hack on or sysadmin for GNU or Mozilla when I grow up

it's interesting to grow up right now because computers are old, but not that old. history is still being made. people (read: governments and Hollywood) are still trying to figure out how to deal with the internet

maybe I'll go into academia. the Mach kernel and Plan 9 are fascinating

strugee

11:24 PM

oh, and on the subject of having resources - you should read Alex Payne's article On The iPad. it's a great read.

strugee

11:43 PM

@slm - al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html

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