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Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 20:16:58 -0500
From: Ron Steele <ron@dc.infi.net>
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Subject: Re: How can I chang my root shell
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Nessus wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 22 Jan 1997 gippolit@ccsmtp2.eccs.com wrote:
> 
> =)     How do I change my root shell
> =)
> =)
> You don't want to do this.  Login as a regular user and su to root
> instead, it will keep the original user's shell (assuming you don't use
> the -l option)
> The reason for this:
> Assume you change root's shell to /usr/local/bin/tcsh, then later on,
> something breaks in your rc, /usr won't be mounted and root won't have a
> shell.

And even if you copy the tcsh or whatever over to /bin, it is probably
dynamically linked and needs the libraries in /usr/lib to run.  The only
way to do it is compile/link your own shell so you know it is statically
linked, copy this to /bin and then change the password file to point to
the new shell. Of course then you stand a fair chance of breaking a
critical shell script somewhere.  

Much better to use su -m

Ron