We have three relatively new servers at work. From the start I've wanted to set them up exactly how I wanted, learning from the last 8 or so years I've been working with Linux.

Because it's mostly Adam and I that work on this machines I created a "webdev" group and added the two of us to it. I then changed our entries in /etc/passwd to reflect this was our default group. I then changed our umask so that files we create have the same group permissions as user permissions. No more "sudo su fitzy" for me - I can edit his files as though they were mine.

To top this off, I changed our home directories to be username:webdev and make them group writable.

Then my auto-authentication broke. Badly. None of the servers believed I was who I said I was and they made me enter my password. My work terminal scripts became just shy of useless and I began to weep.

My brain was asking "Why would SSH stop this? Because something became insecure." I began backing out the changes I'd made, including uploading new public keys, changing the permissions on .ssh and the files within it... c'mon you bitch, work.

In what alcoholics refer to as a "moment of clarity" I thought "but if your home directory's group writable, maybe ssh thinks that someone in your group is nasty and might overwrite your keys."

chmod g-w /home/mlambie

Booyah. I'm back baby. Auto logins for me.

On the otherhand, I now have to re-insert the changes I made when backing out my mods earlier. And I think I might install Breezy this weekend too.