I am working on software and configuration for a device that uses Linux.
I have been asked to provide an administrative interface that requires no knowledge of Linux to use and that has restricted capabilities.
I believe that the best way to handle this will be to use a console login (either through ssh or with a serial port) to present a menu of options. Let's say I have a program called admin_menu
that handles all my desired tasks.
So, I should be able to create a line in /etc/password like so:
admin:x:230:235:Administrative Interface:/home/admin:/local/sbin/admin_menu
Are there any special considerations I need to be aware of when I create my admin_menu
program? Direct answers are good, but pointers to good docs are even better.
General areas that I want more information on are:
- What environment variables can I expect to be set? Which ones will I need to set myself?
- Are there any special considerations when spawning child processes?
- What happens upon termination of my menu process?
- Do I use STDIO for interaction with the console or some other interface?