> > that everytime I log in GNOME, I get a dialog box saying : "permissions
> > on /dev/pmu are broken". Permissions are set as follows :
> >
> > $ ls -l /dev/pmu
> > crw------- 1 root root 10, 154 2004-04-14 16:48 /dev/pmu
> >
> > I'm using GNOME up-to-date, kernel 2.4.25-ben1, gdm to log, and
> > pbbuttonsd up-to-date. In fact, I didn't get this message in GNOME 2.4,
> > and I don't see any problem in 2.6 so far. I'd just like to know why I
> > get this error message.
>
> It's probably from the acme code, which is now integrated into
> gnome-settings-daemon from the capplets package. IIRC it needs to access
> /dev/pmu for backlight control.
Assuming /dev/pmu is user writable by default is clearly incorrect.
gnome-settings-daemon should run suid root, or fix /dev/pmu permissions at
install time. Or use fblevel (suid root) to manipulate backlight. IMHO
world writeable /dev/pmu constitutes too high a risk to consider the
second option. Having gnome-settings-daemon run suid root might even be
worse; use sgid and a special group perhaps?
Please report this bug upstream (to the Gnome maintainers, or the Gnome
team).
Michael
