help

[David Carlson]

On Saturday, 6/29/2013 3:18 AM, Maf. King wrote:
> Hi,
>
> You don't mention operating systems, but I could envisage that on a linux 
> system some cunning ssh tunnelling and x-session or VNC forwarding would allow 
> a remote person to edit a GC data file on your system.
>
> You would need to ensure that the GC data file directory is read/write for 
> both user names.  (or use a dedicated "accounts" user) - but GC doesn't care 
> who is using what data file; only the OS allowing GC to read/write the file  
> is all that matters.
>
> I'll leave it as an exercise for the OP to consider the security implications 
> of allowing remote access into their system.
>
> HTH,
> Maf.
>
>
> On Sat 29 June 13 03:57:03 Axiocentric wrote:
>> I just need to give permission to third person (an accountant) to have
>> access into Gnucash, instead of using it through my account. I found some
>> reviews about it e.g. "Multi-user capability: With GnuCash you can have
>> multiple users, but each user has to have their own data file. Or you can
>> have multiple users opening up the same data file, but not concurrently."
>> However, what actually looking for is this exact feature that a different
>> accounting software offer -
>> http://frontaccounting.com/fawiki/index.php?n=Help.Users &
>> http://frontaccounting.com/fawiki/index.php?n=Help.AccessSetup is something
>> similar to this on Gnucash or can you explain me in more details the
>> "multi-user capability" of Gnucash
>>
>>
>> From: Buddha Buck
>> Date: 2013-06-29 02:49
>> To: axiocentric
>> CC: clavenrn; gnucash-user; gnucash-user-request
>> Subject: Re: Re: help
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Axiocentric <axiocentric at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> sorry?
>> My question is about the permission/access into Gnucash by third person. Is
>> there any option to edit user account and its access level? A
>>
>>
>> I am not aware that Gnucash has any concept of user accounts, access levels,
>> or permission/access.  Usually that is handled at the level of the
>> operating system.
>>
>>
>> What are you trying to do that isn't working?  What operating system and
>> gnucash version are you using?
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Axiocentric,

GnuCash data files have no significant user security features.  As Maf.
has pointed out, your computer has whatever security you have set up on
it or have accepted from your operating system, and remote access to a
GnuCash data file would be exactly the same as remote access to any
other file or directory on your computer.  As others have mentioned, if
you are willing to take the risk of using a cloud service to share the
file with your accountant, then there is a possibility that both of you
may try to access the file simultaneously.  When opening a data file
GnuCash will create a 'lock' file in the local directory that the second
user's GnuCash program should see and warn that the file is open by
another user, but it does not stop the second user from going ahead and
opening the file anyway. Then the file is very likely to be corrupted. 
If the data file is in one of the supported database formats, some of
the details are different but there is still no effective user security.

Many accountants do not want to have direct access, but at most to be
given a copy of the file at an appropriate time.  If the accountant is
acting as your bookkeeper, then perhaps (s)he should be wary of letting
you have access to your books.

David C