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Date:      Tue, 04 Mar 1997 22:18:33 -0500 (EST)
From:      Michael.Alwan.alwan@rma.edu
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   group and user confusion
Message-ID:  <XFMail.970304224031.Michael Alwan alwan@rma.edu>

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----------------------------------
E-Mail: Michael Alwan alwan@rma.edu
Date: 03/04/97
Time: 22:18:33

This message was sent by XF-Mail
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To all:

I'm getting really confused about groups and users.  I've been logging in as roo
t, setting up xwindows, etc.  
Now I see that my mail, news, and browser cache have filled up the root director
y, and I understand there are other 
problems that will arise too doing everything as root.  This is a single-user ma
chine, so security is not an issue.

So I created another user in the group wheel, which would presumably give me acc
ess to all the configuration files but create caches
in /usr/home/"username".  However this new user, which id says belongs to wheel,
 cannot su to root.  In addition, I cannot start user ppp
while logged in as anything but root.  Also, though I think I understand why, I 
can't start xwindows with xdm except as root.  (I need to
figure out why startx can't find the symbolic link X to the xserver--the path se
ems to be correct).

How do I create a usr that can su to root?  Should I just bite the bullet and re
install everything?

Michael




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