Hello,

I’m writing to suggest a feature that I think should exist in Linux:
A system that allows for someone to login (via SSH or local TTY) and look around the system, but not make any changes.

This would be helpful for
External Audits: Organizations can provide auditors with system access without risking changes.
Transparency for NGOs and Privacy-Focused Services: Demonstrate system integrity and openness without compromising security.
Educational Environments: Allow students to explore real life live systems safely.
Incident Response: Enable secure, read-only access for forensic analysis.

I dont know how this could be implemented, as a read only shell or at some deeper level.

at the very basic, a user/login would only allow for ls, cd, cat, grep, find, and such

a more advanced version could perhaps somehow detect if the program running is actually trying to write something (kernel level?) and allow all sorts of programs like dmesg, journalctl, and such, I suppose many read only programs also try to write things to disk so that wont work.

chatgpt suggests tons of stuff to implement (mounting ro and many advanced things) this but this should be useable by new users, it could also be used for tech support. I think this would be useful as standard in linux.

Thanks.