Cinnamon install curiousity

Post#1 by **yldouright** » 20 Mar 2018, 10:59

I am putting together install tutorials for all the Porteus Desktop Environments and am currently playing with Cinnamon 3.2.2. Parts 1 and 2 of my MATE tutorial can be found here. On a Cinnamon fresh install, I changed my root password before enabling my network. I have both WLAN and LAN interfaces but I only run wireless. I edited my repos in the USM settings to known good ones, quit USM and ran usm -u all in the terminal. Everything updates, including the sbo database and downloads of extra-deps.txt and ignore-deps.txt, both of which I didn't recall seeing on MATE. Then, when trying to quit the terminal I receive:

"There is still a process running in this terminal. Closing the terminal will kill it."

What process is running and what will happen to my install if I kill it and leave it in this state?

Post#2 by **ncmprhnsbl** » 20 Mar 2018, 12:52

yldouright wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2018, 10:59
What process is running and what will happen to my install if I kill it and leave it in this state?

some terminals have this message, in this case it's possible it's just the su session you started to run usm (if that's what you did)
it's usually safe to ignore, if there isn't some obvious process you're in the middle of..

Post#3 by **yldouright** » 20 Mar 2018, 13:22

Yes, it occurred after a usm update all session in the terminal as root. Why does it linger like that? It seems like a potential security weakness. By the way, note my response in my other thread.

Post#4 by **ncmprhnsbl** » 21 Mar 2018, 06:33

yldouright wrote: ↑
20 Mar 2018, 13:22
Why does it linger like that?

as i said, it regards the su session as a running process...
if you type exit once you're finished with usm (thus ending the su session) there will be no warning (hopefully)
i'm not familiar with cinnamons terminal, but generally there's a setting that can turn this warning off (at least there is in other terms that have this type of message)

Post#5 by **yldouright** » 21 Mar 2018, 10:48

@ncmprhnsbl
It's as you say, typing exit in the terminal, even when you appear to be on a user account, appears to remove this lingering root. I'm also noting this behavior when you you're on a terminal as a standard user and open the GUI USM or a file directory as root. Closing those windows does not close root as you would expect. This is certainly clunkier than it should be. Will it be addressed like a bug considering its potential as a security vulnerability? To me, it seems like root access is somewhere open without any user indication and that can't be good for security.