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# Mailbag, Part 2

### This month's answers created by:

[ Ben Okopnik, Kapil Hari Paranjape, Karolis Lyvens, René Pfeiffer, MNZ, Neil Youngman, Rick Moen, Thomas Adam ]
...and you, our readers!

## Editor's Note

A note from the Mailbag Editor:

Please, please, please with coconut jam and hagelslag (Dutch chocolate sprinkles) and maybe mit schlag (Austrian whipped cream) as well[1] - don't create forks all over the place by forgetting to send messages to TAG, resulting in "forw:" spattered all over the Subject: line!

(I might share my confection if you go to the effort to cut out the extraneous bits of quoting, too.)

[1] Ben has been calling my always-hungry pregnant belly "the bottomless pit". Threads like this one (135 posts over the course of three months, with lots of editing) require much consolation.

--Kat

# Our Mailbag

### lpr works for user not root in Basiclinux 2.1

Sindi Keesan [keesan at grex.cyberspace.org]

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:43:43 -0500 (EST)

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux Current version 3.40 based on Slackware 4.0 and uClibc

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/bl2/index.htm Previous version 2.1 based on Slackware 7.1

Basiclinux 2.1 comes with a 'user', 3.40 does not.

The author (Steven Darnold) and some highly experienced support mailing list members have not solved this problem in four years.

cat filename > /dev/lp0 works for root, so does gs used CLI without lpr, or pbmtolj from netpbm.

lpr used from Opera, lpr filename or even cat filename | lpr work for 'user', but for root they do not send anything to the print queue (lpq shows no entries). No error messages. I just get another prompt.

Permissions for lpr are unchanged from Slackware 7.1:

    -r-s--s--x 1 root lp

(Must be s to print as user).

    lp0 is crw-r--r-- 1 root root

chmod a+w lp0 did not help (crw-rw-rw-) nor did chmod 777 (crwxrwxrwx). lp0 works for root except with lpr.

In order to work as user I have had to change permissions on /dev/null (w), ttyp* and ptyp* (rw), set suid XVESA and anything svgalib (links2, zgv, gs), make /var/lock writeable, make any scripts suid or executable as user, etc. An education. I can now suid user (or login as user), dial, load Xvesa, icewm, and rxvt and Opera and print as user.

ssh still says 'host key verification failed' though telnet works.

I would like to quit struggling with permissions every time I try to work as user, and be able to print as root. I do know I should not work as root online but I am not running any servers while online with my modem. If you scold me please explain why.

Also BL3.40 comes with only root not user, so it would be helpful to print as root. Both distributions were designed to be used as root, and the author is therefore not interested in solving the problem.

No other distribution seems to have this problem. I read your knowledge base and various HOWTOs.

Does lpr depend on some other program, library, or device that I need to change permissions for? Can YOU print with lpr as root?

Back around 2002 you explained how to use a 2-floppy disk Basiclinux 1 with mdacon when I had no modprobe or telinit. I am typing this on my dual-head system on the amber TTL monitor. You also helped me with OSS and I can now record midi files from the 1986 Yamaha electronic piano to libc5 Rosegarden.

Sindi Keesan

[ Thread continues here (136 messages/356.84kB) ]

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Copyright © 2007, . Released under the Open Publication License unless otherwise noted in the body of the article. Linux Gazette is not produced, sponsored, or endorsed by its prior host, SSC, Inc.

Published in Issue 137 of Linux Gazette, April 2007

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