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Date:      Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:42:33 +0200
From:      Jilles Tjoelker <jilles@stack.nl>
To:        Richard Coleman <rcoleman@criticalmagic.com>
Cc:        John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>, freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: Death to toor
Message-ID:  <20050613144233.GE15281@stack.nl>
In-Reply-To: <42ABAE43.1000704@criticalmagic.com>
References:  <53d4293a37f280317d52338c2fc6fc6d@FreeBSD.org> <20050612025402.GD67746@dragon.NUXI.org> <42ABAE43.1000704@criticalmagic.com>

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On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 11:38:43PM -0400, Richard Coleman wrote:
> David O'Brien wrote:
> >I wouldn't say we are totally safe changing root's default shell away
> >from /bin/csh.  We still see people give the advice that one should not
> >change root's default shell.

> That sounds like old school sysadmin conservatism.  I don't think there 
> is any technical basis for such advice.  I'm not suggesting that the 
> default be changed, since consistency is also a desirable thing (I get 
> irked when I log into a box as root and suddently find that I'm in 
> bash).  But I doubt it hurts anything to changes root's shell these days.

Actually, there is a case where it matters. The following command,
executed as root, uses the shell field in the passwd entry "root"
(except if getlogin() returns a different username with uid 0):

su -m nonrootuserwithinvalidshell -c 'command'

I sometimes use this in scripts with more complicated commands and then
it's pretty annoying that that depends on root's shell :(

-- 
Jilles Tjoelker



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