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Really run as any user?
Authored by: stewby on Aug 28, '05 03:41:26AM

Is this hint accurate? I'd be extremely surprised if it's actually possible to run things as an arbitrary user, since I don't think it's possible (at the system level) to run a GUI program as anything but root or the current console user--nothing else should have access to the correct bootstrap context.

The dialog to enter a user name and password is presumably just Pseudo triggering the standard system dialog authorizing it to run with administrator privileges. You can log in as any administrator user there, but it runs as root, not that user.



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Really run as any user?
Authored by: mazatty on Aug 28, '05 01:03:13PM

it's certainly possible to run apps as any user. i do it all the time and haven't had any problems, not to say there aren't any. you just use sudo from the terminal with the "-u" options.

sudo -u guest /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal



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Really run as any user?
Authored by: dc_rees on Aug 29, '05 01:30:12AM

That's cool.

For some reason, the last time I tried that I tried specifying the path only down to application.app. I didn't think to try specifying all the way to the launch script.

Now I know how to drop privileges for web access. I can add one more layer to the wall between potentially bad sites and my machines.

---
Say yes to CPU multiculture



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