bash - superuser

[Dick Davies]

* Erik Trulsson <ertr1013 at student.uu.se> [1224 00:24]:
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:30:20AM +1030, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> > On Monday, 20 December 2004 at 15:52:27 +0100, Ruben de Groot wrote:
> > > On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 01:32:53PM +0000, Dick Davies typed:
> > >> * Gerhard Meier <gemei2 at web.de> [1207 12:07]:
> > >>> On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 08:41:57AM -0200, Giuliano Cardozo Medalha wrote:
> > >>>> I have a machine with FreeBSD 5.3 - release -p2.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I have installed bash from ports.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> How is possible to use bash in root account ?
> > >>>
> > >>> Do not change the shell of the root account. If you have /usr or
> > >>> /usr/local on a separate partition, and you cannot mount for some
> > >>> reason, you wont be able to fix that, without booting from
> > >>> another device.
> > >>
> > >> No, but you'll still be able to use /bin/sh when going single user, so
> > >> what's the big deal?
> > >
> > > Using a shell not contained in the root filesystem can cause
> > > problems even when not in single user mode. There are enough
> > > examples in the archives.
> > 
> > This is a particularly tenacious rumour.  I've been using bash as my
> > root shell on many different UNIX platforms for nearly 14 years, and
> > I've never had any problems.  I've also never seen any substantiated
> > problems reported anywhere.
> 
> There was actually an actual problem with having bash as root shell
> reported on this very list about a week ago. See
> http://docs.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?41C0CC10.4020109
> and
> http://docs.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20041216001329.GA37679
> for the conclusion of the thread.

I can't see the beginning of the thread there, but ISTR that's a problem with
the pppd script running before the dynamic library path is set up (so being unable
to see /usr/local/lib). 

That's hardly a bash issue, and would be a non-issue if you statically linked bash
(I can't think of any reason to want a dynamically linked one).

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