Re: operator permissions: a wish-list

[Craig Skinner]

Matthew Szudzik wrote:

I don't know the history of the operator group, but it almost seems as if 
it dates back to the days when BSD ran on mainframes whose only form of 
removable media was a tape drive.  Of course, computers are being used 
much differently nowadays, so it makes sense to update the operator group.


It comes from the job description of "Computer Operator". You know what 
a Systems Administrator is, operator is a much lower profile junior job. 
In large companies, operators often work the graveyard shift and operate 
the backup routines. Been there, done that....

Or, alternatively, maybe the operator group has become obsolete with the 
advent of sudo?  In that case, perhaps the operator group should be 
abolished, because I get the feeling that the operator group, in its 
current form, isn't serving any real purpose.


It is used by backup apps, such as amanda (in ports). It can also be 
used by your local backup scripts to dump slices.

Maybe there is need for an additional group for other functions that are 
now more common? So you could be added to operator and desktop (or 
whatever name is better)