[tesla-dev] powertop and root user

[Rafael Vanoni]

Eric Saxe wrote:
> Rafael Vanoni wrote:
>> Alexander Kolbasov wrote:
>>> I'd prefer the tool to give me the data in any mode without root 
>>> privileges. If I'd like to follow the suggestions and fix anything it 
>>> is quite another story and I would expect to either enter root 
>>> password or just learn the command(s) I need to run as root to 
>>> improve the situation. 
>>
>> I agree, but asking for root passwd seems the right choice here.
>> No need to fork the tool.
> Privileges are a bit more complex than simply root (or not) in 
> OpenSolaris (see privileges(5)).
> 
> IMHO it's far easier for the tool to detect if it has sufficient 
> privileges to perform a given operation before, or even detect when it 
> failed to perform an operation due to EPERM, than deal with the 
> implications of having the tool manage privilege escalation, and to do 
> so correctly. That's scary code to write. :)

Ah.. ok.

Another example of software buddhism: no extremes, just take the middle 
path :)

Rafael