From owner-cvs-all Tue Dec 1 21:24:55 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA09976 for cvs-all-outgoing; Tue, 1 Dec 1998 21:24:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns.mt.sri.com (sri-gw.MT.net [206.127.105.141]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA09970 for ; Tue, 1 Dec 1998 21:24:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nate@mt.sri.com) Received: from mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by ns.mt.sri.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id WAA04045; Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:24:32 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from nate@rocky.mt.sri.com) Received: by mt.sri.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id WAA03866; Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:24:31 -0700 Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:24:31 -0700 Message-Id: <199812020524.WAA03866@mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Mike Smith Cc: Luoqi Chen , committers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: full path of sysctl in bsd.port.mk? In-Reply-To: <199812020312.TAA02182@dingo.cdrom.com> References: <199812020118.UAA29476@lor.watermarkgroup.com> <199812020312.TAA02182@dingo.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 19.16 "Lille" XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk [ sysctl not found in the 'standard' places ] > > > Sysctl should be in your path; it's a general-purpose enquiry tool. > > > > > It's in /sbin and I don't include it in my path as a non-root user. Isn't > > it a unix convention that system binaries (/sbin /usr/sbin) are included only > > in superuser's path? Most of them require root priviledge anyway. For the few > > that I do use frequently as a regular user (e.g. ping, traceroute), I have > > aliases for them in my shell's setup. > > >From hier(7): > > /sbin/ system programs and administration utilities fundamental to both > single-user and multi-user environments > > sysctl is a system program fundamental to both single-user and > multi-user environments. It's a popular misconception that */sbin > contains administrator-only programs; one that is popular amongst the > sort of admins that like to keep their users as much in the dark as > possible. Actually, go look at the programs in /sbin, and you'll be hard pressed to find any 'generically' useful programs aside from ping and traceroute that normal users can use. I'd say this 'misconception' is anything but a misconception, but a fact of the way life is. > As the general interacive interface to the system MIB, sysctl > definitely belongs in /sbin. Agreed, but it's not generically useful, nor should it be something normal users should rely on using. The interface changes too much, and it's use should be 'hidden' from use by normal users so they don't *have* to use it to get their job done. Nate To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message