jeff <moe(a)blagblagblag.org> wrote:
Chris Tyler wrote:
> The /sbin and /usr/sbin directories contain many utilities that are
> useful to non-superusers, such as ifconfig, netstat, arp, fuser, lsusb,
> runlevel, dumpe2fs, hwclock, lsof, traceroute, and many others.
> Obviously, most of those utilities can do -more- when run as superuser,
> but that doesn't diminish their value to mortals.
[...]
I believe the correct answer is not to add sbin to users' paths,
but
to move binaries out of sbin and into bin and symlink them so they
don't break old scripts. By my reading, this is what the FHS implies,
but there is lots of inertia to such a change.
/sbin: "Utilities used for system administration (and other
root-only
commands) are stored in /sbin, /usr/sbin, and /usr/local/sbin."
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE16
Note "root-only"
Note "system administration"...
/usr/sbin: "This directory contains any non-essential binaries
used
exclusively by the system administrator"
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE25
Note "EXCLUSIVELY"
Probably an overstatement.
For this reason a few years ago `traceroute` was moved out of sbin.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18313
That is sensible. But ifconfig(8) is not for luser consumption, and so are
lots of others.
If you do want them, go /sbin/ifconfig etc.
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