Shell nodes should be separate virtual machines from the VMs running other Arvados services. You may choose to grant root access to users so that they can customize the node, for example, installing new programs. This has security considerations depending on whether a shell node is single-user or multi-user.
A single-user shell node should be set up so that it only stores Arvados access tokens that belong to that user. In that case, that user can be safely granted root access without compromising other Arvados users.
Shell nodes should be separate virtual machines from the VMs running other Arvados services. You may choose to grant root access to users so that they can customize the node, for example, installing new programs. This has security considerations depending on whether a shell node is single-user or multi-user.
A single-user shell node should be set up so that it only stores Arvados access tokens that belong to that user. In that case, that user can be safely granted root access without compromising other Arvados users.