Isn't running netscape as root dangerous?
Bambi
"Michael E. Shea" wrote:
> Alex V Flinsch wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 04 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> > > I am trying to get dynamip (www.dynamip.com) to work with my linux box
> > > and cable modem connection. Dynamip gives you a
> > > "subdomain.dynamip.com" address for $3 buck a month. To get their
> > > service to work with Linux, I will have to use cron to force netscape
> > > to open a specific url every 15 minutes. I am in the process of
> > > putting together some scripts to do just that.
> > >
> > > As a test, I did the following.
> > > I made a file called "netscapetab" with the contents:
> > >
> > > #Start of netscapetab
> > >
> > > #! /bin/sh
> > >
> > > netscape -noraise -remote 'openurl(http://www.news.com)'
> > >
> > > #End of netscapetab
> > >
> > >
> > > I did a "chkmod +x netscapetab" to make the script executable. Run
> > > from the shell, this script will find the first open netscape window
> > > and load up the News.com web site.
> > >
> > > As a test of cron I modified my crontab as follows
> > >
> > >
> > > #Start of crontab
> > >
> > > SHELL=/bin/bash
> > > PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
> > > MAILTO=root
> > > HOME=/
> > >
> > > # run-parts
> > > 01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
> > > 02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
> > > 22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
> > > 42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
> > > */1 * * * * root /usr/bin/netscapetab
> > >
> > > # Mandrake-Security : if you remove this comment, remove the next line too.
> > > 0 0 * * * root /etc/security/msec/cron-sh/security.sh
> > >
> > > #End of crontab
> > >
> > > Now /var/log/cron shows /usr/bin/netscapetab running every minute. But my
> > > browser window does not open News.com.
> > >
> > > Any ideas.
> >
> > idea 1 --
> >
> > your script is running as root, your open netscape window isn't, and
> > can't be found
> >
> > idea 2 --
> >
> > do you really need to waste all that memory running netscape to get
> > the url? From the above, you just need to hit some website every few minutes to
> > have your dynamic ip assignment working. And I assume that news.com is not the
>
> > real website that you need to hit, it's probablly something on dynamip.com. Why
> > not try something like
> >
> > wget -O /dev/null http://www.news.com
> >
> > in your crontab instead?
> >
> > --
> > Alex
> > (Go easy on me, I'm a COBOL programmer in real life)
>
> Idea 1 is not the problem, as I ran netscape as root. But idea 2 I really like. I
> did not know about the wget program. I am going to give that a try.
