On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 23:26 -0600, Ralph Porter wrote: > Why the "golden rule" of not working as root? > > In the mainframe world we control access with a security package. > This keeps most users from hurting themselves. I've always have had > unlimited access (aka root) and never burned myself. Maybe linux is > not as forgiving?
It's just a matter of minimizing accidents, since the worst thing you can do as an unprivileged user is delete the files owned by that user. Whereas a mistake as root could delete the files owned by *all* users, and leave you with a non-booting system. So, why risk running with permissions to do the latter except when you actually need to? That said, I don't always follow that advice - my scripted builds run entirely as root, since having a script acquire root permissions partway through is a pain. But yeah, it comes down to that the less time spent running with maximum permissions, the more chance of a serious accident with them. Simon.
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