On 10Apr2014 17:04, Dharmit Shah <dharmit....@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Peter Otten <__pete...@web.de> wrote:
Dharmit Shah wrote:
I am trying to create a script that will go through the
/var/log/secure file on a Linux system and provide desktop
notifications for failed login attempts.
[...]
For readability purposes, I have provided pastebin links. Let me know
if this is not the correct way.

We like the code inline. If it is big, maybe tack it onto the bottom of the message. That way people can (a) read your message when offline, as I sometimes do on a train (the email is already downloaded to my laptop) and (b) the full context is present in the mail archives so that things make sense when perusing them.

Peter Otten said:
Maybe you are running the code as a user that has no "desktop"? [...]

You again:
That does ring some bells. I am logged into my F20 system as non-root
user but since reading /var/log/secure file requires superuser
privileges, I am running it as sudo:

 sudo python secure.py

That probably explains the issue I am facing. I will add the user to
the root group and see if it helps.

As a matter of good practice, try to run as little as possible as root. Minimum priviledge means minimum scope for mistakes to do damage.

If the secure file has a group granting only read access, your group additional is a reasonable thing to do.

Failing that, consider something like this:

 sudo tail -F /var/log/secure | python secure.py

and have secure.py just read from standard input. This is that advantage that (a) the only root thing is the tail command, which just reads and (b) your program can produce alerts in real time as they come in from the tail, without having to write painful "tail"-like logic within the program.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <c...@zip.com.au>
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