Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 7 Jan 2002 14:25:50 +0100
From:      Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net>
To:        FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Can I rename root?
Message-ID:  <20020107132550.GA1970@raggedclown.net>
In-Reply-To: <20020107134907.B835@localhost>
References:  <20011229154552.B855@localhost> <20011230103317.A474@localhost> <20011231154733.A832@localhost> <20011231155709.GA8082@rhadamanth> <20020106234436.A837@localhost> <20020107045736.GC1368@raggedclown.net> <4mpu4m4rq8.u4m@localhost.localdomain> <20020107064602.GA3480@raggedclown.net> <20020107134907.B835@localhost>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 01:49:07PM +0100, Rogier Steehouder wrote:
> On 07-01-2002 07:46 (+0100), Cliff Sarginson wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 06, 2002 at 10:09:35PM -0800, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> > > Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net> writes:
> > > 
> > > > Yup, all someone needs to do is to egrep about 100 million lines of
> > > > source code for every program that could possibly be run on FBSD
> > > > for the usernames you don't want on your system.
> > > > 
> > > > Sounds like a job for bicycle repair-man to me...
> 
> I should think most programmers know their code and know which usernames
> are needed. Maybe it is quite a job for the base system, but what about
> the ports collection.
> 
> Or am I still too naieve.

Well, naive to the extent that you imagine they all subscribe to this
newsgroup .. some of them are dead I am afraid.

> 
> > > Sounds like a job for someone with time to post worse-than-useless
> > > ridicule of newbies.
> 
> After more than 16 months of using FreeBSD from 4.0 to 4.4, I don't
> consider myself a newbie.
> 
No, it was not me who said you were a newbie, you obviously are not.
Anyway there is nothing wrong with being a newbie.

> > Someone who takes it on themselves to rename root, until told otherwise
> > is not a newbie.
> > He was given lots of reasons why not.
> 
> I have studied applied physics, I believe very little without proof.
>
Well, that shit cuts no ice with me. Waggling credentials proves
nothing. You chose to ignore the advice given to you by people who
have used Unix for years and years. They are the proof, in this case.
And if any of them say something clearly incorrect (as I recently did
concerning another topic) they get corrected pretty quickly. That's
the way it goes.

> > He did not accept any of them until someone went to the effort of
> > finding a piece of source code that showed why not.
> > I.e. *soneone else* went to the effort, not him, someone else.
> > Now he wants a justification from *someone else* on what user-ids
> > he leaves on his system.
> 
> It's not my fault I cannot read C :-)
> (At least not without some difficulty, and not how some people write
> their code)
> 
So what kind of proof is that .. ? You sought proof, yet you accepted a
piece of code as "proof", when you cannot understand what you are
reading. I could have made up a few lines of "C" for you to prove it.
And yet although you cannot read "C" fluently, you know enough to dig
at the way people write their code ? Mmmm.. something odd here.

> > It was not ridicule, it was a statement of what would be involved in
> > such an exercise. If he distrusts the default users that come with the
> > base system so much then *he* can do the egrep, he can provide the
> > information for others.
> 
> I know it would be quite an exercise. That's why I asked first: maybe
> someone already tried. The quickest and easiest way to learn something
> new is to ask someone who already knows.
> 
Not necessarily, anyway this violates your principle of "proof". And
lots of people already knew, since they *do* know how people write code,
and that the chances are very high that an explicit test against root
is made somewhere in some program. Statistical probability exists in
physics doesn't it ? 

> I really expected one of the programmers to respond along the lines of
> "Don't do that, it will break my program", but until Ceri noone could
> actually name a program.
>
One of *the* programmers, which programmers ? 

> I have seen the error of my way.
> 
I don't think you have made an error, but you did not take any notice of
anyone telling you not to do it until you saw one piece of "C", which
you admit to not fully understanding, which could have been made up
anyway just to stop this thread .. :)

My (uncharacteristically) angry response to the person who said I was
ridiculing you as a newbie comes from three things a)You clearly were
not a newbie b)I consider ridiculing newbies (which you are not anyway)
to be cheap, nasty and loathsome and c)Although I have many years
experience of Unix/C etc. etc. I still consider myself a newbie on many
things, and see no shame in asking my "newbie" questions.

Btw .. ROFLMAO, is IRC speak for "rolling on the floor laughing my arse
off" .. :)


-- 
Regards
Cliff



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020107132550.GA1970>