[ale] Linux Distributions

[Jim Popovitch]

On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 09:17 -0400, Jerry Yu wrote:
> no need for IP or root pw. Since whoever made the 'root-safe' claim
> has unlimited console access, so should you. All you needs to do is to
> walk up to the console, type in 'rm -rf /', and say, 'Oops' ;-)

That seems to be one of the most ardent reasons for having an
unprivileged user account.  And it is a valid one.  I would add though
that the chief reason Windows doesn't have this problem is that access
controls are set accordingly out of the box (seriously, why should
anything in /bin ever have w perms?) AND Windows allows you to undelete
things that were mistakenly deleted.  

If a user is smart enough to not "rm -rf /", and is comfortable enough
to not need to undel something in /bin, or the system has the proper
permissions, ACLS, etc., then it seems safe to run as root in this
regard.  The "rm -rf /" issue is not a consequence of using root, it's a
consequence of the application (rm) not verifying and/or not allowing
undelete.  Now, if I wanted to troll I would add that you can blame the
underlying OS for not protecting system binaries.  But I won't. ;-)

-Jim P.