users accounts that don't save data

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 11:46 -0400, jdawgaz at cox.net wrote:
> ---- Nathan Aubrey <nathan at paysonlinux.org> wrote: 
> > On Monday 19 March 2007, Craig White wrote:
> > > looking for a way to have user accounts (local or ldap) whose data is
> > > erased (not saved) upon logout.
> > >
> > > Are there any methods that can accomplish this?
> > 
> > Make sure you have it setup to create their account with pam on login, then 
> > when logging out edit the .bash_logout file to delete their homedir. When 
> > they login again, it will be re-created. Make sure everything they need to 
> > login is ready in the /etc/skel file, including the correct .bash_logout file
> 
> you know I thought something like this would work, but after looking at the bash man page for a while, I'm not sure.
> 
> 1) you would have to make certain when you create the directory that you create a .bash_logout that is owned by root, and that the perms don't allow any other user to edit .bash_logout.
> 
> 2) also, can you delete a parent directory while reading a file in it? that would be the case if you are executing .bash_logout while trying to delete its parent directory.
----
quite the contrary...this is Linux and not Windows. You can delete files
that are 'open' and you can delete subdirectories even if you have a
shell whose current working directory is that now deleted subdirectory
(though it will cause ancillary issues).

Craig