Use of Root

[Jerry Feldman]

On Monday 31 January 2005 22:23, Bill Horne wrote:
> It's all in the preparation: IMNSHO, a user who "needs" root privileges
> is a sign of a system that needs more support.
I tend to disagree here. Sometimes the task may require root privileges, 
such as writing device drivers, or configuring a system for testing, or 
even installing special software. 
In the war story I needed root privilege to do my job, which was writing a 
device driver. Because of the header files, the device driver had to be 
built in a certain directory hierarchy (HP-UX). That directory tree was 
owned by root. Also, while I was writing it as a loadable module, one had 
to be root to load and unload the driver, and to reboot the machine. A 
coworker had the need to reboot another system, but he also did not have 
root privs, so every time he needed to reboot, he had to call IT. IT 
finally gave him reboot access via sudo. This is an example of an IT group 
preventing people from doing their jobs. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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