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Date:      Sun, 14 Feb 1999 11:51:43 +1000
From:      Greg Black <gjb@comkey.com.au>
To:        Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: q about ports, root, security 
Message-ID:  <19990214015143.6937.qmail@alpha.comkey.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9902121852150.15344-100000@pez.hyperreal.org>  of Fri, 12 Feb 1999 19:02:57 PST
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.9902121852150.15344-100000@pez.hyperreal.org> 

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> It's generally considered a Good Thing to do as little as possible as
> root.  I can certainly scrutinize a "make install" step if it's important
> to me; scrutinizing the entire build process is another issue entirely.

So why not use sudo for the install step once you've checked
what it does?

> Is this worth worrying about?  I know a common target of derision are
> those new users who log in and send/receive mail and browser the web as
> "root" when using a desktop Unix; well, if we reduce the amount of time
> they need to spend as root, maybe they won't need to be it so much...

Except for when I'm literally playing with the options on a
brand new install of an OS I'm not yet familiar with (during
which time the machine will not be connected to anything else),
or doing repairs in single-user mode during a boot, I never
login as root or even su to root.  I setup sudo and provide all
the access I need with it and everything goes smoothly.

-- 
Greg Black <gjb@acm.org>


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