On Friday 07 July 2006 11:54, Tim wrote: > On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 20:50 +0200, nigel henry wrote: > > It would make sense for /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin being in > > ~/.bash_profile as default. /usr/local/bin, and /usr/local/sbin probably > > are not neccessary, as these would only be there from user installed > > source tarballs. > > > > There do not seem to be any security issues here, as any user can add > > pathways to ~/.bash_profile, and they can only read the info, not change > > it. > > There probably still are things that a user can do some harm with sbin > commands, so I wouldn't be too carefree about it. On a single user > system it probably isn't too much of a problem, beyond having to fix up > what went wrong (though they'd have to know what to do). Keeping them > out of the path helps against accidents and following bad advice. > > On a multi-user system there's more potential to cause a problem. > Putting such commands in sbin sub-directories makes it less likely for > them to be used accidentally. And it can be a method of making it next > to impossible for unauthorised users to use those commands. Hi Tim. I see the point you're making here, particularly with a multi-user system. This is mainly a problem for newbies, who trying a command, are returned to the prompt with a "command not found", which can mean many things. In this case the path to the command is missing, but could also be due to a typo, need to be root, package not installed, and so on, and is a bit confusing initially. Once you get used to how it all works it's fine, and there's always lots of willing help on the various lists. Nigel. > > --
