Default user/password

[dlech]

As @ensonic, @rhempel and I started discussing in #388, we are going to start shipping with a default user and password instead of using root. I have a bit of a dilemma here though in choosing the name.

The obvious choice is ev3dev, but when you create a new user, it also creates a new group with that name. However, we already have a system group called ev3dev for use with sensors and motors, so these would conflict.

Then next choices are ev3 or dev. ev3 is OK, but ev3dev runs on other hardware as well (i.e. Raspberry Pi). dev is OK too, but it could be confused with /dev.

Another possibility is using the generic user. Or we could get creative and think of something else. I would like to keep it short though, because I will probably be typing it frequently.

And we need a password to go with it.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[rhempel]

What's the issue with the default username being ev3dev? I understand there's a system group that already has the name, but if I create my own user, and make them a member of the ev3dev group I don't have any more special permissions at the user level of the ev3dev user files.
Is the issue simply avoiding having system and group usernames that are the same?

[dlech]

Is the issue simply avoiding having system and group usernames that are the same?

Right, you can't have 2 groups with the same name. I guess we could make the users default group ev3devuser for example. We could use the adduser --ingroup option to set the group to the ev3dev system group, but this could cause some unexpected results, or maybe not, I don't know.

[dlech]

I'm looking and /etc/adduser.conf has an option to disable usergroups, which would take care of this problem. I'm thinking that is what I will do. All users will have the default group of users.

Still need a password though...

[rhempel]

what about just having a user called guest and ensuring that the motd for that user indicates that it's an insecure account.

[laurensvalk]

For beginning users, I think having a default user with password and permissions set up properly, would be ideal. In my opinion having no default password actually complicates things. (Whenever prompted for a password, I find entering a password more intuitive than pressing Enter or leaving a field blank, depending on the situation.)

Basically such that all/most steps in "Step 5: First things to do with ev3dev" such as setting up a user and adding it to the appropriate groups can be skipped.

Then the only thing that needs to be done after writing the SD card is "Step 4: Setup a network connection". In some cases, that might prevent having the user to do any command line typing at all. (Say, if in the future we have something like Jupyter or Open Roberta installed by default.)

Some more ideas for user names, including some short ones:
lego
robot
ev3
lmsuser
ev3user //shorter than ev3devuser
ev3rstorm
ev3programmer
beginner

And passwords. Most of the above, or:
mindstorms
linux4mindstorms

[ensonic]

As far as I see it, most users will never ever have to enter the password for the user. I'd like to have the 'user' pregenerated:

• for having a home-directory to store generated/downloaded programs
• having a restricted user to run such code

With usernames/passwords I'd avoid the lego brandnames. What about: username=user and password=ev3dev

[rhempel]

I'd avoid using user as a username because it can introduce confusion in documentation:

foo_cmd -verbose -u user

Wait, do we put in user or the actual username? My personal feeling is guest is good enough - and as Stephan says, using LEGO brandnames is to be avoided.

Password can be ev3dev, or some other phrase - it would be really good if the motd could be tuned for guest to encoureage them to create a new user.

[dlech]

I don't like guest because to me that invokes the idea of a limited user account and our default account will be fully privileged (e.g. sudo powers). And I was able to work around the technical issues with having ev3dev as the user name. So, unless someone has a really good argument otherwise, I am going to go with

user: ev3dev
password: robot

for the next release.

[G33kDude]

I use the raspbian defaults on my ev3, since it makes it much simpler to copy/paste from guides written for the raspberry pi.

user: pi
password: raspberry

That being said, this is not a raspberry pi and ev3dev/robot sounds like as good credentials as any.

[laurensvalk]

So, unless someone has a really good argument otherwise, I am going to go with user: ev3dev, password: robot

User ev3dev being a member of ev3dev group seems somewhat ambiguous to me, even if it's technically possible. You could flip it to get:

user: robot
password: ev3dev

[rhempel]

I'm OK with using ev3dev as the default user - I understand the conflict with the ev3dev system group, but it seems like the least bad alternative.

@laurensvalk has a good suggestion as well with robot as the user name, I'm OK with either one - the advantage that it has is that the user is not tied to EV3, so it works well as the default user on the Pi (and maybe BeagleBone) distribution

[dlech]

OK, robot:ev3dev it is.