On 2010-01-29 10:07:51 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote: > On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:59:23 -0500, Vincent Lefevre wrote: > > For security reasons, it's better to run commands as > > normal users rather than root. > > I tend to be pretty cavalier about that stuff. Some people > go to seed on trying to issue absolutely every possible > command that doesn't require root access as a non-root user. > But to me, that's too much work to keep everything straight. > To me, redefining hardware interfaces is a system > administration task. If I'm doing system administration > work, I become root. And when I'm finished with system > administration work I go back to being an ordinary user > again. The two things that are likely to change my habits > are these: [...]
However, "ifconfig -a" does not redefine hardware interfaces and is not a system administration task. Asking a user to become root to run this command is not a good advice. Similarly, when one wants to build software that needs to be installed as root, the build step can (and should) be done as a normal user. Become root only when needed, i.e. for the installation step. -- Vincent Lefèvre <vinc...@vinc17.net> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.net/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.net/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arénaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
