What is on Your Mind?

In UNIX, if everything is a file, then what file(s) am I, as a user?

You are lines in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/groups. These are the bare minimum for a user to login on a UNIX system normally. It's possible for root to force a login into arbitrary UID numbers that don't actually exist, though. Nothing explodes when this happens. They just show up as a number instead of a name, start sitting in /, and have no home directory, no groups, no anything.

Real, actual, login-as-people users probably have a folder under /home/ as well.

You are /dev/null.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. :-)

lol

ROFL classic!!

This assumption is wrong. What was the full quote in context?


You the user are just an configurable data item.

I lol'd


I based this on what I've read (cs.bgu.ac.il/~arik/usail/concepts/filesystems/everything-is-a-file.html) and what other people told me about UNIX (-based) OS'es. IIRC among one of them was a Linux sysadmin.
Feel free to correct me though, I would love to learn why this assumption is wrong.

methyl is on the correct track, IMO.

The file statement is correct, but individual user accounts are a subset of a group of files. Users change the program state of the kernel because they initiate processes through direct connections that they control.

This is what is meant by the link: any physical entity that is directly/indirectly attached to the computer makes that attachment to the kernel via a file - disks, network connections, terminals, remote connections. Whatever. Since humans are not directly tcp/ip, fddi, or fibre channel (etc) connected, they are not a file, they are parts or subsets of files.

Unless you would like a direct network connection into a wifi NIC into your cerebrum, you have to settle for sub-file status. That won't be available until Diablo III is released (per my son). Sorry....

I think this thread is kinda soft for for a technical forum....