users accounts that don't save data

[Nathan Aubrey]

On Tuesday 20 March 2007, you 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.
>
> Jerry
>

If the .bash_logout script calls an external script, say

/usr/bin/remove_user $user

Setup the pammkdir to create the users directory with permissions so a user 
can delete his own home folder, then make the /usr/bin/remove_user script do 
a simple check to verify the user requesting the deletion is the same as the 
one who owns the folder.

it should be pretty simple to setup.

nathan