On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Will Woods wrote:
>
>
> Now that I do some research I see that /sbin has not been in the normal
> PATH as far back as RHL9 and probably going back to RHL6 or earlier. I
> think it's just Always Been Like That. So there's no discussion and no
> convincing argument.
I'm sure it was that way in RH6, probably 4 - and confusing people even
then.
The /sbin paths have never been in a normal user as far as I can tell
(from 3.0.3 days). The reason is that $(FOO)/sbin was meant to locate
system administrator specific commands versus normal user commands.
This is from the System VII days I think. On some systems a system
administrator could make sure that these commands could not be
executed by normals with a simple:
chmod 0750 /sbin /usr/sbin
with only people in the specific wheel or in the root group able to
get there. This would lock down setuid programs.
--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"