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Date:      Thu, 14 Sep 2000 13:42:18 +0200 (MET DST)
From:      Tobias Roth <roth@iamexwi.unibe.ch>
To:        igorr@crosswinds.net
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Root Shells
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.4.10.10009141331040.6653-100000@vasarely>
In-Reply-To: <20000914090047.C22658@linux.rainbow>

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> > Over the last few months I have become quite used to zsh, and have set the
> > root account on one of my boxes to use it. However when a friend of mine saw
> > this he seemed to think it a very bad thing, noting that zsh is not in the
> > root partition etc. My question is, is this really a problem? can't I just
> > run sh if the need arises?
> This is bad. This is bad just because you work as root always. If you don't do 
> this, then why do you need zsh for root. Also, it is good idea to use static
> linked shell for root. Also, if some error will be found in sh/csh it will be 
> fixed "automagically" after next cvsup (or next next cvsup). But for zsh you
> need reinstall it from ports. 

That's what the toor account is for. In normal operation, you use the toor
account with the shell of your choice when you need superuser privileges,
in case of an emergency (i.e. when /usr is not mounted) you use the root
account with /bin/sh.

Put a line like
   alias su="su toor"
in /home/youruser/.profile

Your /etc/passwd looks something like this:

root:*:0:0:your name:/root:/bin/sh
toor:*:0:0:zsh superuser:/root:/usr/local/bin/zsh
youruser:*:1000:1000:yourname:/home/youruser:/usr/local/bin/zsh



cheers, Tobe



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