Shell

Donald Wilde dwilde1 at gmail.com
Tue Jun 30 14:58:35 UTC 2020


On 6/30/20, Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jun 2020 06:33:44 -0700, Donald Wilde wrote:
>> I would add only one suggestion here, and that would be to consider
>> using bash-static and parking it in a place where it is available in
>> the event of an excruciating mishap.
>
> This is usually where the "toor" user is interesting: It is
> for interactive use, but in worst case, regular "root" will
> always work as expected.

Yes, exactly. As one of my model train heroes once said, "In the event
of excruciating pain..." and the sign on his layout pointed to a
largish hammer. :)

>> The only concern with doing so is that doing so causes the (larger!)
>> bash-static kernel to be used everywhere. If you have lots of regular
>> users with console prompts, this could be painful.
>
[snip]

>> I haven't done this, but it should be possible to install both
>> bash-static and bash. One would have to rename the first (bash-static)
>> to something other than 'bash' and add that to the /etc/shells file,
>> but after doing so also install the bash package with the
>> non-monolithic binary 'bash' and use that as the shell for regular
>> users.
>
> That is an even better approach. :-)

Excellent. Glad you think so, Polytropon!

For completeness, one would also want to alter the /etc/group file for
the toor user, since it does not appear to be automatically created
any more, at least in my 12-STABLE system.

Since the 'mailing list etiquette' answer has already been written as
an Article on FreeBSD.org, and far better than I could do it (!!!), I
will apply myself to testing this process and writing an Article
describing this and submit it for comment and posting.

This way, our community has the benefit of the active development of
BASH by the GPL guys and also supporting the folks like me who are
surprised by TCSH behavior.

I believe it has value beyond just me, although it's pretty complex to
add as a section in the Handbook. :D
-- 
Don Wilde
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