Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 23:48:45 +0100 From: David Goddard <goddard@acm.org> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>, Kris Kirby <kris@catonic.net> Subject: Re: Traditional UN*X conventions (Or: Why not to login as root?) Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20001016234845.007cd100@dmg.parse.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.1001016152627.52938B-100000@shell-2.enteract .com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0010150739480.59649-100000@spaz.huntsvilleal.com>
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At 15:30 16/10/00 -0500, David Scheidt wrote: ... >% cd >% rm -rf * .bak Actually, at the risk of being overly pedantic, on the FreeBSD systems that I've seen, the above would only wipe out either /root or the home directory of the user that su'd (depending on how things were set up), I think (but I'm not about to go around trying it). >done as dms will annoy me and send me scurrying for the backup tapes or >disks. Done as root, I'll be much more than annoyed. I'll have users after >me! And a wasted evening while I rebuild the system. I don't do anything >as root, with the exception of user administration, and installing or >removing software. Yeah, but I'm sure that Murphy's Law or one of its evil cousins means that when you *do* make that typo, it'll be when you're logged on as root in order to do something essential. Personally, I like to have something like this in my .cshrc file: if (${me} == 'root') then alias rm rm -i alias mv mv -i alias cp cp -i endif It's not infallible (it won't protect you from wanton use of -f for example), but it helps... My own nightmare happened a while back was when I was logged onto a Solaris box. I wanted to change some file group ownerships, so happily typed something like: $ cd /path/directory $ su Password: $ chgrp -R lusergroup * Of course, on *this* box, as soon as I su'd, it changed my directory to /, with obvious hilarious consequences (not). There's nothing like spending ages fixing your damage to educate you that it's generally a much better idea to do $ somepotentiallybadcommand -R directory rather than $ somepotentiallybadcommand -R * :-( Dave To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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