Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 19:06:18 +0100 (CET) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: window manager question Message-ID: <200001051806.TAA36854@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> In-Reply-To: <85006u$1jb1$1@atlantis.rz.tu-clausthal.de>
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Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> wrote in list.freebsd-questions:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, R Joseph Wright wrote:
>>Why do you need toor to use a different shell? I run root using bash
>>because sh and csh are annoying. Whenever I've had to do a repair and
>>my /usr partition is not mounted, it defaults to sh.
>
> I just read somewhere (on this list) that it is good practice to leave the
> root account alone, and not change the shell. But apparently this isn't
> really a big deal.
Indeed, it's not a big deal (at least on FreeBSD), but it's
really good practive. There are UNIX systems on which you run
into trouble if you change root's login shell (for example,
single-user mode might stop to work -- this is a non-issue on
FreeBSD, because it asks you for the shell when it goes into
single-user mode).
However, there are other reasons for leaving the root shell as
it is. For example, on a "big" box with several admins,
changing root's shell would break POLA. When I log into a
UNIX box as root for some reason, I _expect_ it to have csh as
login shell -- everything else would be confusing. I can type
``/bin/sh -E'' anytime if I really want.
And finally, I tend to modify as few standard settings as
possible. If there's no good reason to change something, then
I don't change it. And IMO there is no good reason to change
root's login shell.
For the above reasons (and because of "good practice"), I never
change root's login shell. Instead, I use ``su -m'' (as a
normal user) to become root, which causes my root shell to be
the same as my normal user shell (which happens to be zsh).
In fact, my ``su'' is an alias for ``su -m''.
This is especially convenient on servers where multiple admins
work, because every admin can have his own favourite shell when
working as root, independent of all others, without having to
dictate a certain shell on anybody, and (last but not least)
without having to change root's login shell, so in case of
emergency you can be certain that a csh will be there for you.
Regards
Oliver
PS: No, I don't like csh either. :-)
--
Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18/61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany
(Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de)
"In jedem Stück Kohle wartet ein Diamant auf seine Geburt"
(Terry Pratchett)
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