There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User
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When I worked for the bank this came up as an end user request all of the time. Managers outside of IT seemed to have gotten the impression that somewhere out there was a check box to make a new user "read only", but no one ever explained to me even what they thought a statement like that would mean.
Today, I had an IT person implying that they were a med-level system admin or higher, needing this for a junior admin. Of course, when IT says things like this, we have even more complications. What does this mean to someone who makes such a statement?
Read only, of course, would need to apply to the filesystems but also to memory and such. This can't happen, computers don't work this way. Without the ability to make system changes, the user could not log in, let alone do anything. It's a completely nonsensical concept in computing. Even normal powerless end users on any system have the ability to write changes both to memory and to disk. If you give someone no ability to write to disk at all, you make most systems disfunctional at best. If you only mean no writing to disk, it's plausible, but silly.
A normal end user has more than "read only" access. They can save files to the temp scratch space and to home directories. But a normal end user can't do anything to influence the running of a server.
I've never figured out what people think that they are asking for when they request such a situation. Do they think that there is a standard thing called a "read only user" and that they've just never seen it? Do they think that "read only" applies to just one thing? Do they really want a user with a log in that can't work in their own space? Do they thing that normal users can modify anything on the system that they want (e.g. do they think that normal users and admins are the same thing?) This is one of those "people have something in their minds" that doesn't map to the real world and instead of asking for the functionality that they want use some weird, made up term that never seems to match what they would actually be hoping for as a goal.
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This is a rather strange request for sure. Any admin, whether medium level or higher, should recognize the lack of sense this makes and that it is hardly feasible in any meaningful fashion. Of course the skeptic in me asks if your a medium level admin why are you asking this in the first place?
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@jmoore said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
This is a rather strange request for sure. Any admin, whether medium level or higher, should recognize the lack of sense this makes and that it is hardly feasible in any meaningful fashion. Of course the skeptic in me asks if your a medium level admin why are you asking this in the first place?
I actually said exactly that "how are you over a junior if you are making this request" but I edited it because it was a bit harsh, but totally honest. What kind of mentor could this be if he is that unaware of how his systems work?
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Perhaps they simply mean what you know they really mean it to be, and as usual it is a semantics problem.
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Seems like the confusion between the literal and intended meaning of "read only" can be avoided by establishing what rights various "levels" of employees should have for X data.
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Apparently pointing out that this is conceptually nonsensical and asking the poster to clarify was "too harsh" for the sensitive non-IT people over there. I don't have an issue with being modded for this, they have to protect the sensitive incompetent money base from being shown that they aren't the senior admins that they think that they are. But here is the post that I made. It was called a personal attack, but reading it again, I can't see a single personal thing in it outside of asking the OP for clarification on what he meant:
"This is a really bad term "read only access"? Asking for "read only access" is normally something we associate with end users. What does "read only access" actually mean to you? Have you thought that through? No system, even a normal end user, isn't limited to only read only. You can't be read only on the filesystem or you can't do anything, at all. You can't be read only to memory or whatever or you can't even function, it doesn't work. The very concept of a "read only" user doesn't make sense.
If you want your junior admin to have access like a normal end user, so that he can't break anything, that's definitely not read only and will work just fine and is just normal "making a user."
"Read only" is not a viable concept in computing. Really sit down and think about what this would mean. i've been asked this a LOT over the years, but never by someone working in IT, especially not someone working on systems. Maybe you just used a really bad term, but you should really take some time to reflect on your understanding of how computers work and ask what you would actually expect the functionality of a "read only" user to be and why you need something like that that would be dramatically less powerful than a normal user for someone you want to be a junior admin."
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@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive. You've said things like this to me but you're also right that I haven't considered the topic we are discussing as well as I should have. Depends on the person and how well they handle criticism. It's a lot easier for me to accept criticism when I know it's coming from someone whose goal is to help me. He's having trouble realizing the difference between attacking him personally and attacking the concept.
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
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@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
A lot of people are choosing to be offended, it's the year 2017 and I can't relate to my fellow Americans anymore
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
Depends on the person and how well they handle criticism.
Right if they handle it professionally as an adult, or unprofessionally or like a child. Someone saying that it is offensive is WAY more offensive to him than what I said. Deleting my post says worlds more about the moderator's opinion of the OP than my post did of mine.
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
A lot of people are choosing to be offended, it's the year 2017 and I can't relate to my fellow Americans anymore
It's just people who are doing IT but can't handle it and hate people finding out.
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
A lot of people are choosing to be offended, it's the year 2017 and I can't relate to my fellow Americans anymore
<--- triggered
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
He's having trouble realizing the difference between attacking him personally and attacking the concept.
See, and that's directly accusing him of being an idiot and comprehension problems
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@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
Depends on the person and how well they handle criticism.
Right if they handle it professionally as an adult, or unprofessionally or like a child. Someone saying that it is offensive is WAY more offensive to him than what I said. Deleting my post says worlds more about the moderator's opinion of the OP than my post did of mine.
Is the expectation that everyone should be at the same level of emotional maturity? I would never expect that personally, but I grew up in a household where I was more of an adult than my parents.
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
A lot of people are choosing to be offended, it's the year 2017 and I can't relate to my fellow Americans anymore
I'm a bit offended by this.
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@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
Depends on the person and how well they handle criticism.
Right if they handle it professionally as an adult, or unprofessionally or like a child. Someone saying that it is offensive is WAY more offensive to him than what I said. Deleting my post says worlds more about the moderator's opinion of the OP than my post did of mine.
Is the expectation that everyone should be at the same level of emotional maturity? I would never expect that personally, but I grew up in a household where I was more of an adult than my parents.
No, but the expectation is that everyone in a professional role needs to be a certain minimum level of maturity. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was and just lacked some technical understanding. The moderator decided that he was an immature person which was way more dramatic than what I did.
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@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller You're insinuating that he hasn't used his brain, which is up to him to interpret as offensive.
Which if he finds offensive, would be him not using his brain.
A lot of people are choosing to be offended, it's the year 2017 and I can't relate to my fellow Americans anymore
I'm a bit offended by this.
“You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” - Fight Club
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@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@scottalanmiller said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
@wirestyle22 said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
Depends on the person and how well they handle criticism.
Right if they handle it professionally as an adult, or unprofessionally or like a child. Someone saying that it is offensive is WAY more offensive to him than what I said. Deleting my post says worlds more about the moderator's opinion of the OP than my post did of mine.
Is the expectation that everyone should be at the same level of emotional maturity? I would never expect that personally, but I grew up in a household where I was more of an adult than my parents.
No, but the expectation is that everyone in a professional role needs to be a certain minimum level of maturity. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was and just lacked some technical understanding. The moderator decided that he was an immature person which was way more dramatic than what I did.
Your minimum is way above mine but our experiences I'm sure are very different
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@EddieJennings said in There Is No Such Thing as a Read Only User:
Seems like the confusion between the literal and intended meaning of "read only" can be avoided by establishing what rights various "levels" of employees should have for X data.
https://img1.etsystatic.com/140/0/11120616/il_340x270.878678639_hzio.jpg
Clearly, you need to define security levels based on primary colors.
