02-08-2012
In the olden days of Wyse and VT-100 terminals and serial connections, before networks and GUIs and emails and iPads were invented, users on UNIX systems (and those old character-based terminals) could send messages to other users with commands like "write" and do broadcasts with "wall". You would use "who" or "users" to see who else was logged into the system and what they were doing and then send a message. You tried not to do this while the other user was editing something or doing something else that your message would screw up, which is why you needed to see what they were doing. More than 25 years later, the current Linux releases still have those commands. The way the commands worked has never changed and users can still see some information about each other.
From a security point of view, it makes little difference. It's not seeing someone else's processes that is the security problem; it's that you got to a shell prompt in the first place. These days, secure UNIX and Linux systems force regular users directly into an application on login and then disconnect them when they exit the app. You NEVER let a regular user get to a shell prompt where they can run things like "ps" and "top" and "users". So, the system you're talking about is intrinsically insecure...
As for privacy, any time you're using a system that someone else owns you are not entitled to any expectation of privacy. All of your files and activities are open for inspection by the system owners or whomever else they allow to look at them. So, if you want a private system, you'll have to build one of your own and then don't let anybody else log into it.
Cheers!
Last edited by sds9985; 02-08-2012 at 02:09 AM..
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LEARN ABOUT REDHAT
bos_listusers
BOS_LISTUSERS(8) AFS Command Reference BOS_LISTUSERS(8)
NAME
bos_listusers - Lists the privileged users from the UserList file
SYNOPSIS
bos listusers -server <machine name> [-cell <cell name>]
[-noauth] [-localauth] [-help]
bos listu -s <machine name> [-c <cell name>] [-n]
[-l] [-h]
DESCRIPTION
The bos listusers command lists the user names from the /etc/openafs/server/UserList file on the file server machine named by the -server
argument. The users are authorized to issue privileged bos and vos commands.
To edit the list of users, use the bos adduser and bos removeuser commands.
OPTIONS
-server <machine name>
Indicates the server machine from which to display the UserList file. Identify the machine by IP address or its host name (either
fully-qualified or abbreviated unambiguously). For details, see bos(8).
For consistent performance in the cell, the output must be the same on every server machine. The bos adduser reference page explains
how to keep the machines synchronized.
-cell <cell name>
Names the cell in which to run the command. Do not combine this argument with the -localauth flag. For more details, see bos(8).
-noauth
Assigns the unprivileged identity "anonymous" to the issuer. Do not combine this flag with the -localauth flag. For more details, see
bos(8).
-localauth
Constructs a server ticket using a key from the local /etc/openafs/server/KeyFile file. The bos command interpreter presents the ticket
to the BOS Server during mutual authentication. Do not combine this flag with the -cell or -noauth options. For more details, see
bos(8).
-help
Prints the online help for this command. All other valid options are ignored.
OUTPUT
The output lists the user name of each user entitled to issue privileged bos and vos commands.
EXAMPLES
The following example lists the users from UserList file on the machine "fs4.abc.com".
% bos listusers fs4.abc.com
SUsers are: pat smith jones terry
PRIVILEGE REQUIRED
None
SEE ALSO
KeyFile(5), UserList(5), bos(8), bos_adduser(8), bos_removeuser(8)
COPYRIGHT
IBM Corporation 2000. <http://www.ibm.com/> All Rights Reserved.
This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. It was converted from HTML to POD by software written by Chas
Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth Cassell.
OpenAFS 2012-03-26 BOS_LISTUSERS(8)