I haven’t really used Linux, but I feel it might be useful for a potential project. Is it possible, and how doable is it, to have a password locked admin account and an open user account which is heavily restricted on what they can do? As in, not even browse files. Preferrably only desktop access where they can launch the apps placed there. Which Linux would be the best for this while still being on the easier side to figure out? I do understand tech somewhat well and quite enjoy problem solving, so doesn’t need to be ELI5 territory.
Thanks for the advice! The premission stuff sounds perfect. So by default, basic account can’t really mess anything up, even if it’s a tech literate person using it?
In theory if there are no security holes, a user account can only mess up its own account.
Note that what steps you want to take will really depend on who these users are and what you want to achieve. There’s a vast chasm between allowing in, say, friends or colleagues, vs. letting random people on the internet access it. The latter will mean someone will intentionally look for exploits, which means e.g. regularly applying security updates becomes far more pressing.
If you are letting in random strangers, I’d look into only giving them access within a separate container or ideally virtual machine per user as an extra precaution unless what you’re making available is very stripped down.
From past experiences, the worst I’m expecting is kids that think they know what hacking is because of some whacky Tiktok or Youtube video they saw. So there may be some intention to mess with things, it’s just not very likely they truly know what they’re doing. There won’t be internet involved, hopefully.
I like the idea of a separate container or the like, will need to look into it, thanks.
If it’s not connected to the internet, that certainly does take away a significant cause of problems. Good luck
Correct, users that are not explicitly configured as
sudoersare limited both in files they can access and commands they can run.Awesome!
Since I think the answer is pretty much complete I just want to link you a tutorial/article giving a short overview and introduction:
https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/linux-file-permissions
One more thing, always remember that for Linux everything is a file (a path, a program and well a file like an image) therefore everything can be restricted with this.