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Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:58:41 +0200
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: ASV <asv@inhio.eu>
Subject: Re: A very 'trivial' question about /root
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On Wed, 26 Jun 2013 23:34:41 +0200, ASV wrote:
> There's any reason (and should be a fairly good one) why the /root
> directory permissions by default are set to 755 (for sure on releases
> 8.0/8.1/9.0/9.1)????

This is the default permission for user directories, as root
is considered a user in this (special) case, and /root is its
home directory. The installer does not put anything "secret"
in there, but _you_ might, so there should be no issue changing
it to a more restricted access permission.

Hint: When a directory is r-x for "other", then it will be
indexed by the locate periodic job, so users could use the
locate command (and also find) to look what's in there. If
this is not desired, change to rwx/---/---, or rwx/r-x/---
if you want to allow (trusted) users of the "wheel" group
to read and execute stuff from that directory (maybe homemade
admin scripts in /root/bin that should not be "public").

There are few things that touch /root content. System updating
might be one of them, but as it is typically run as root (and
even in SUM), restrictive permissions above the default are
no problem.

To summarize the answer for your question: It's just the default. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...