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  (8.6.12/D) Fri, 9 May 1997 20:50:39 +0400
From: bag@sinbin.demos.su (Alex G. Bulushev)
Message-Id: <199705091650.UAA02496@sinbin.demos.su>
Subject: Re: why 'toor'?
In-Reply-To: <199705091017.UAA28441@ogre.dtir.qld.gov.au> from Stephen McKay at "May 9, 97 08:17:49 pm"
To: syssgm@dtir.qld.gov.au (Stephen McKay)
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 20:50:39 +0400 (MSD)
Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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> On Thursday, 8th May 1997, Michael Hancock wrote:
> 
> >On 8 May 1997, Choi Jun Ho wrote:
> >
> >> >From all the dist of FreeBSD I've seen, there is an id 'toor',
> >> equivalent to 'root'. I heard that is for Bourne-shell root users, but
> >> I cannot understand why two root id exist. Is it a some traditional
> >> reason or some kind of joke?
> >
> >'root' is to be used with 'sh' a statically linked binary in case /usr
> >isn't mounted.
> >
> >'toor' can use a dynamically linked 'bash' and be equivalent to root.
> 
> Sounds like a good plan, but it's not what we do.  As distributed, "root"
> on FreeBSD runs /bin/csh, and "toor" runs /bin/sh (both are only available
> statically linked).  Since I hate csh with a burning passion, I always
> delete "toor" and convert "root" to sh when installing FreeBSD.  By the
> way, "Charlie Root" and "Bourne-again Superuser" are a bit silly as names.
> I always include the machine name, like "doorstop root".
> 
> I suppose the real reason for "toor" is to appease the csh haters.  It's
> been like that since 386BSD as far as I can recall.  I don't think it
> was like this in the 4.2 BSD days, but I now have no way to check.
> 
> Stephen.
> 

in 2.9 BSD days and 4.2 BSD days there was no sharing libs
and root with /bin/sh used in single user mode when /usr not mounted
toor used for alternative shell ... if, for example, /bin/sh demaged ...

   Alex.