Re: Access for coders

From: Eric Jonathan Green (ejg3@cornell.edu)
Date: 07/18/95


On Tue, 18 Jul 1995, Idle Process wrote:
> We're just starting up here, and we have basically only two folk with 
> access to the code now, and we both have root access.  However, we will 
> not be wanting ALL our coders to have root :)
> 
> What sort of user/group structures and permissions are being used out 
> there?  I tried setting up a 'mud coding group' that myself and another 
> coder are members of, and chmoding everything so the group has rights to 
> it, but the autorun script still messes up everytime one of us runs it - 
> the other can not, because of rights problems.  Are people creating a 
> special user for working on the mud?  Or several users with the same UID 
> but different pw's?

Accounts for each person and one general account is the best way to go. 
Only the head imps require access to the general account.

Code can be controlled with a revision control system (such as rcs or sccs),
which takes care of permissions for the source.  This prevents multiple
people from modifying the same file at once, records the modifications
(good for finding where new bugs were created), and controls who can make
changes to particular files (so for example, lesser imps can't make
changes to act.wizard.c). 

For running the mud, write permission is only needed on the lib/etc
directory and files (i think), and the rest can be links.  Each person's
account needs
   circle
   circle/src
   circle/bin
   circle/lib
   circle/lib/etc

Create links for the rest of the directories.
Each person can run the mud for testing and make modifications, but their
access is limited to what you trust them to.

Multiple accounts give each imp their own environment to configure as they
like, and provides protection and access control for the main mud. 
Testing changes can be done without worrying what others are doing.

If you only have one account, multiple accounts can be simulated by
checking who is logging into the account when they first connect and setting
HOME and LOGNAME (for RCS).  This gives each person their own sub account
cutting back on getting in each others way, but doesn't give the main
circle tree the full protection.

Eric



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/07/00 PST