On 7/24/07, Justin C. Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was not paying attention when the notebook design was being
> discussed, so I was surprised to see that starting it up requires an
> "enabled" root login.  On Mac OS X, this is generally discouraged,
> and is not the default.

The notebook can be run in both secure (https) and insecure mode.
When run in insecure mode, you
run as a user called "root", and things are pretty much like they were
before with the old version of the notebook.
This is the default, if you do notebook(), but it should probably
not be the default.

Currently the root user is distinguished from other users in that they
can edit and view any worksheet.  In the future, they will have additional
administrative powers over the notebook server.

If you run in secure mode, then you have to create a user to login
to the notebook.  By default, creation of new users is not allowed,
except for a root user that is created by default.   If you start
the notebook with the option accounts=True, then any visitor
to the notebook server webpage can create a new account
(this is off by default).

If you type "notebook?" you'll see more about all this.

> Some of us system types might not mind it, but for the average Joe,
> it might be somewhat disconcerting.  Is there an alternative to this?

What is disconcerting?  I.e., what alternative would you like?

I would be very happy if some people including you would read the
output of notebook?, understand how the current model works, and propose
some alternatives.  Basically the user model that we worked out at SD4
was only one of the many usage cases, i.e., the one for the public
notebook server.

If you just want to use a notebook directory that you have, say on sage.math,
you type

sage: notebook(reset=True, address="sage.math.washington.edu", secure=True)
Setting password for the root user.
Enter new password: xxxxxxx
Retype new password: xxxxxxxx

This will set a new password for a root user (with access to all worksheets),
start an https server on the next available port, and you can then login to it.
No new accounts can be created, so other users won't be able to create
an account and delete your personal files.

 -- William

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