Robert Citek wrote:
As for security, if someone is putting or modifying executable code in your ~/bin, then I would not worry about where ~/bin appears in your PATH.
I had thought about security in my earlier post. And I concur that you probably have bigger problems if someone can access any part of your home directory. The same thing is true for the infamous "." in your path. Modern shells require the "./myscript.sh" before they will run.
I run a find script to show the last modified time of all files/dirs. Come to think of it, maybe that should be run in every .login and compare things like last login dates etc.
Maybe Robert is right and we should not have ~/bin at all (or in your PATH) and alias explicit paths. Harder to set them up but maybe more effective, and with that much RAM who cares. (I have an alias that saves all my aliases to a startup file.)
The admonishment about the order of user executable subdir. in the path statement comes from a number of basic unix books I have come across. Usually it is in the following context; you leave your terminal/computer logged in and go to say the restroom or the copier down the hall. A stalkers sits at the terminal and modifies one of your ~/bin commands to something destructive or compromises your password and leaves.
But it is still true, if someone has access to your account you have so many other problems that the path order probably makes little difference. Perhaps the file/directory access strategy would be superior but would you always look at the output carefully enough to catch the 1 time a ~/bin command showed up? If you only used aliases, the stalker could just modify the alias to do the same thing. So maybe the texts are not exactly right :o
Now that I think about it I should get in the habit of logging out more regularly or locking my office door :)
-- Rex Nelson Ph.D. Postdoctoral Scientist
Ames,IA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(515) 294-1297
~~~_/) ~~~
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