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  • From: Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>
  • To: Geoffrey Derber <gderber AT sourcemage.org>
  • Cc: Discuss SM <sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] bash_profile and bashrc . . .
  • Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:47:49 -0800

On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 06:37:29PM -0500, Geoffrey Derber wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 18:49 +0100, Arjan Bouter wrote:
>
> > This also is not a bug. This is a security measure. Root's profile
> > can/should be
> > different from that of normal users. For example root can have /sbin in
> > $PATH
> > which normal users shouldn't need and to minimize the risk of a
> > non-functional
> > root account things like bash-completion and other stuff which installs in
> > /etc/profile.d shouldn't be in root's profile. By installing a normal
> > file
> > instead of a link you make sure lazy admins don't use /etc/profile
> > instead of
> > their own.
>
> If we are considering the security risk, shouldn't the /sbin directories
> be removed from /etc/profile? In which case we'd also probably want to
> move 'gaze' to /usr/bin or something like that.

This has nothing to do with security. /sbin/gaze works even when PATH
doesn't have /sbin/. PATH is only a convenience.

/etc/profile.d shouldn't be picked up automatically by the root account,
though, that is a good point. I prefer my root account prompt to be
totally different than user accounts, too, for example (more than just
$/#).

Seth

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