On Saturday 11 September 2010, Stéphane Guedon wrote: > Le Saturday 11 September 2010 11:46:59, Albert Hopkins a écrit : > > On Sat, 2010-09-11 at 10:24 +0200, Stéphane Guedon wrote: > > > few months ago, I read linux kernel in a nutschell(sic), and the author > > > wrote we shouldn't do kernel operations (config and build) as root. > > > > I call bullsh*t. I've been compiling kernels for 17 years and for the > > most part have done it as root without any problems. > > > > What the author is saying is that, to an extent, in theory no one should > > compile anything as root, or really do anything non-system-adminly as > > root. You should only do as root what is critically necessary (e.g. > > make install) as root. > > > > In a perfect, tidy world we'd all do that. This world, however does not > > exist. Even portage, by default does configure and make as root (albeit > > in a sandbox so it is safe(r). > > > > What the author means is theoretically the config/compile phase could > > unintentionally cause some kind of harm to your system. In practice I > > have never seen this or heard of it. The kernel devs are bright enough > > to ensure that the compilation does nothing outside the source tree > > itself. > > > > It's a good guideline but, like the government's dietary guidelines, not > > ones I intend to follow religiously. > > > > > Is sudo (or kdesudo ?) a good replacement to that ? > > > > sudo runs things as root, so effectively you've done nothing but add a > > password prompt to the mix. > > > > Gentoo actually makes this a bit more difficult, because usually one > > uses portage to install the kernel sources, and they get installed as > > root-owned, and only root has write access to the kernel tree. > > > > Some people, such as myself, use kernel sources outside of portage (I > > follow a git repo) and do so as a non-root user. In this case the > > kernel tree is not owned by root and the config/compile is easily done > > as a non-root user. > > > > If you are super-paranoid. You can make a non-root copy > > of /usr/src/linux and compile it as a non-root user. > > > > But there really isn't any point in using sudo. It's effectively doing > > the same thing that you are trying to avoid. > > I am not paranoid anymore, just asking to knowing persons... > Ok ! thanks for your answer !
well, some years ago someone made a mistake causing some people doing make as root loosing /dev/null or something like that. But not even everybody was hit. /me prefers loosing /dev/null over having /home/$USER overwritten.
