From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 19 13:36:01 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05C5616A403 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:36:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9925643D76 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:36:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com) Received: from db2.internal (db2.internal [10.202.2.12]) by frontend1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 69A5CDB673A for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:35:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by db2.internal (MEProxy); Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:36:01 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: ZZUxJ2tqGMTi+p9AiwTuMfQ77dUkJ1JB7JThbzc4wMRm 1161264960 Received: from gumby.localdomain (bb-87-81-140-128.ukonline.co.uk [87.81.140.128]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91BCF63A9 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:36:00 -0400 (EDT) From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:35:53 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.4 References: <200610191303.k9JD322j081114@dc.cis.okstate.edu> In-Reply-To: <200610191303.k9JD322j081114@dc.cis.okstate.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200610191435.55488.list-freebsd-2004@morbius.sent.com> Subject: Re: Why csh on Root? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:36:01 -0000 On Thursday 19 October 2006 14:03, Martin McCormick wrote: > Is there any particular reason why FreeBSD has csh as the > default root shell? Nothing really wrong with it except that I > quit using csh about twelve years ago and so am a little rusty > about the finer details when I come across a csh shell. On a > number of FreeBSD4.x systems, I used chsh to change root's shell > after installing bash and the only thing I noticed was that one > should be careful of the $PATH variable and make sure it at least > hits all the same directories in the same order. Other than > that, it worked. > > On a recent upgrade to 5.4, I noticed the C shell is > still default so I figured I would ask before changing it so as > not to introduce hidden problems later. Basically, I like bash > better and also add a couple more paths such as /usr/local/etc > for home-grown applications. There are problems with using a root shell that isn't entirely on the root partition. See the faq and search the list for details. There is an alternative uid 0 user called toor which you can use if you want to use bash as root. OTOH hand there is a school of thought that you shouldn't be too comfortable as root.