SunLizard Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 What are the fundamental differences on the iPhone with the new account rights? Background: 1.1.3 implements a new user account on the iPhone, the 'mobile' account. 1.1.2 and previous versions have all tasks running on as 'root.' Discussion: Anyone with exposure to 'nix environments can rattle off a handful of reasons why its not good to utilize the root account for general use as it has the inherent ability (power) to really muck things up by accident or malicious intent. Since the iPhone OS was not originally intended to be accessed by anyone other than official Apple folks I guess they thought the environment was stable/closed enough to be able to get away with doing everything off of 'root.' Hindsight being 20/20 or the realization that with the SDK they were going to need some type of protection for the OS from the developers, Apple has implemented a 'mobile' account. Some questions: 1) what's the mobile password? Has that been published yet? 2) what limitations are placed on the mobile account? 3) what determines 'signed' status? does it only apply to files (executables?) under the 'mobile' account? Anyone who has more 'nix experience than me (and that's probably the majority of you on this site) feel free to conjecture and 'discuss'. S_L Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85209-guru-question-whats-the-fundamental-difference/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berzerker Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 1. You can still log in as root, both passwords are still alpine. Logging as mobile will kick out right after logging in. 2. None, as far as I can tell. 3. I don't think there is any, I think this was just a feeble attempt from Apple to break every single app in the repository. It was designed to work, but not to work for too long. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85209-guru-question-whats-the-fundamental-difference/#findComment-605654 Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSn1™ Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 Well, this account as I can see, is supposed to be the one that run the 3rd party apps. I agree with Berzerker, this was designed to break the apps available trough installer.app. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85209-guru-question-whats-the-fundamental-difference/#findComment-607491 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunLizard Posted February 8, 2008 Author Share Posted February 8, 2008 Interesting. I'm not sure why it logs you out right after you log in. I would have suspected it would wait for execution before logging you out, especially if it is designed to be the account most 3rd party apps are run from. It may have something to do with the default shells 'mobile' uses as its default environment. Is there any way anyone knows to see what is actually going on (ie LOG) the processes that execute from the time the mobile account is launched until exit? Just another purely academic q. Peace. S_L Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85209-guru-question-whats-the-fundamental-difference/#findComment-613535 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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