Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 08:46:54PM -0500, Garance A Drosihn wrote: At 2:09 PM -0800 1/4/09, David Christensen wrote: I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? Why do that? Just create your own root account, put what you want for a shell on that account and use it. Use vipw. Copy the root line and then change the _second_ one to be your own root id- say, Rgad - and make a loging in directory for it. Change the directory part of the pw entry to be that and the the shell to be what you want. Then change the password to be what you want or use some pwvault utility or whatever. Just make sure you specify the second root account (Rgad) when doing so or it will change the real root's password. jerry What I do is add the following lines to /root/.login : if ($?prompt) then if ( -x /usr/local/bin/bash ) then # echo Switching to bash setenv SHELL /usr/local/bin/bash exec /usr/local/bin/bash -login endif endif I've been doing this for at least 10 years. I haven't had any problems with it, but Your Mileage Might Vary. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn= g...@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or g...@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteor dro...@rpi.edu ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
David Christensen dpchr...@holgerdanske.com writes: freebsd-questions: I'm building a fresh Amanda server using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386: http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amand a-server Most of my software background is GNU/Linux. I would prefer using the Bash shell, but the default FreeBSD shell for root appears to be the C shell: p3450# echo $SHELL /bin/csh I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? Assuming you build the shell statically linked, and put it in the root partition, you're unlikely to have any trouble. However: - that is what the toor user is for - in my own opinion, anyone who cares what shell root runs is probably spending too much time running as root -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
At 2:09 PM -0800 1/4/09, David Christensen wrote: I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? What I do is add the following lines to /root/.login : if ($?prompt) then if ( -x /usr/local/bin/bash ) then # echo Switching to bash setenv SHELL /usr/local/bin/bash exec /usr/local/bin/bash -login endif endif I've been doing this for at least 10 years. I haven't had any problems with it, but Your Mileage Might Vary. -- Garance Alistair Drosehn= g...@gilead.netel.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or g...@freebsd.org Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteor dro...@rpi.edu ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 02:09:03PM -0800, David Christensen wrote: freebsd-questions: I'm building a fresh Amanda server using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386: http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amand a-server Most of my software background is GNU/Linux. I would prefer using the Bash shell, but the default FreeBSD shell for root appears to be the C shell: p3450# echo $SHELL /bin/csh I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? I change my root shell to pdksh. It's statically linked and I copy it from /usr/local/bin to /bin. In single user mode you're prompted for a shell (/bin/sh is the default) so I usually use that. I've never had any problems (famous last words ;) Just have to remember to copy the executable to the root filesystem if your shell gets upgraded. What you don't want to do is overwrite /bin/sh with /bin/bash or anything like that. The boot up scripts depend on /bin/sh and although bash is meant to be Bourne compatible, I wouldn't trust it myself to bring up the system without problems. TIA, David Regards, -- Frank Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
freebsd-questions: I'm building a fresh Amanda server using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386: http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amand a-server Most of my software background is GNU/Linux. I would prefer using the Bash shell, but the default FreeBSD shell for root appears to be the C shell: p3450# echo $SHELL /bin/csh I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? TIA, David ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell? A topic of debate, but yes it is okay to change the root shell, but there are some things to know... Some people fret about the idea that shells like bash are not on the root partition and are usually dynamically linked to libraries which reside on /usr and are therefore not available in single-user mode. (One could install a static version of bash to avoid this.) Additionally, FreeBSD prompts the user for the path to the desired shell when going into single-user mode. Shells like sh and tcsh, while dynamically linked, their libs reside on the root partition. If that isn't enough, statically linked shells exist in /rescue and therefore should always be available. Furthermore, the installation CD can be booted from and can provide an emergency repair shell. So yes, there is no technical reason you cannot change the root shell. Just be aware that a default bash install will not be available in single-user mode. But... best security practices dictate that you should not be using the root shell. If you're using the root shell often enough to find the default shell inconvenient, you should consider using something like sudo and a regular user account instead. You can use the builtin 'su' command with the '-m' flag to preserve the environment of the current user, while elevating your privileges. The shell used will be the login shell of the user issuing the 'su' command. Only members of the group 'wheel' may issue the 'su' command. -Modulok- On 1/4/09, David Christensen dpchr...@holgerdanske.com wrote: freebsd-questions: I'm building a fresh Amanda server using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386: http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amand a-server Most of my software background is GNU/Linux. I would prefer using the Bash shell, but the default FreeBSD shell for root appears to be the C shell: p3450# echo $SHELL /bin/csh I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? TIA, David ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386 will changing root shell break anything?
On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 5:09 PM, David Christensen dpchr...@holgerdanske.com wrote: freebsd-questions: I'm building a fresh Amanda server using FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386: http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amand a-serverhttp://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=miscportname=amanda-server Most of my software background is GNU/Linux. I would prefer using the Bash shell, but the default FreeBSD shell for root appears to be the C shell: p3450# echo $SHELL /bin/csh I have changed the root shell to Bash on another machine I use as a CVS server and haven't noticed any issues yet, but I've been wondering if I'm setting myself up for problems by doing so. Does anybody know if it's okay to change the root shell on FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-i386? TIA, David ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org well you will lock yourself out of the system if you uninstall bash or bash breaks. I would enable toor just in case ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
