A very 'trivial' question about /root

[jb]

Julian H. Stacey <jhs <at> berklix.com> writes:

> 
> jb.1234abcd <at> gmail.com 's ref to
> 	https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=578470
> relates to Linux upgrade procedures & /root
> I don't see it affects how we should perceive an idealised Unix.
> 

The upgrade was a canary that told the user there is a problem.

The idealized UNIX is standardized.
According to Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), a UNIX standard:

"
/root : Home directory for the root user (optional)
Purpose
The root account's home directory may be determined by developer or local
preference, but this is the recommended default location. [17]

[17] If the home directory of the root account is not stored on the root
partition it will be necessary to make certain it will default to / if it
can not be located.
"

The above means that there has to be implied equivalency and consistency of
permisssions between /root and / in order to ensure trouble-free operation
of any process that may rely on any of them.

That Linux case I referred to was a case about a system that relied on
the above 0755 setup for /root dir, with an interesting twist of having it
as a dummy account/dir for consistency, but having other accounts play
the role of a superuser.

Another example:
some app (perhaps an installer) runs as non-root (e.g. Apache) user and
needs to be able to read the root ssh public key from /root dir.

There could be many such apps, accessing a front-end system, having to
check for permission in /root dir for whatever they want to do, anywhere
in sys admin, remote control, management, installation, etc areas.

By changing this default you may ambush many unsuspecting users.

jb