2008/3/26 Jesse Keating <jkeating(a)redhat.com>:
On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 12:02 -0600, Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:
> but being as /sbin paths are
> meant for administrative tasks, I actually do see having them as part of
> a regular user's PATH a potential security risk.
That's completely bogus. A "hidden path" offers 0 security. If you
don't want your users running them, set the permissions on the binary,
or better yet, have the binary check the EUID of the caller. If
non-root, display that the command is for root users, but also allow the
user to get --help and other usage or informational output from the
command. Just don't allow non-root users to apply anything. There
really is no reason I can think of to hide this crap in a different
directory. It just adds needless complication and confusion.
Is Fedora committed to the FHS? Or is Red Hat still committed to it?
The purpose was for root only programs of a certain class to be
located in /sbin for example but including non-root programs there
does muddy the experience for the end user. However I do think it is
cleaner to make those programs available to a user by means other than
adding /sbin to the default path of a normal user. A few links are
cheap. Would links for those in /usr/bin clash with the FHS?
John