Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

Aleksandar Milivojevic alex at milivojevic.org
Wed Dec 7 01:00:52 UTC 2011


On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Robert Holtzman <holtzm at cox.net> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:08:44AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Robert Holtzman <holtzm at cox.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 09:15:11AM -0800, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > > > Sure, using find or which, etc., can be used to locate a particular
> app,
> > > > but that's not really the point.  Why not simplify things and put all
> > > > binaries under /usr/bin?  Then you don't have to teach users about
> silly
> > > > distinctions like "Oh, see, if it's an app that's meant to be used
> by a
> > > > System Adminstrator, then it goes into /usr/sbin".  Who cares?  Just
> put
> > > > everything in /usr/bin to keep things simple.
> > >
> > > There are programs that an admin doesn't want users to run.
> > >
> >
> > You're kidding, right?
>
> In view of the fact that the op said *all* binaries, would you, as an
> admin, want users of unknown knowledge/ability to have the ability to run
> any program in /sbin? That would scare the hell out of me.


If there's anything in /sbin that when run by unprivileged user does any
type of harm to the system, you have much bigger problem on hand.  All of
those utilities will simply fail and exit with an error
if unprivileged user attempts to do anything remotely interesting with them
(other then boring and safe things, like look up some world-readable info,
etc).  So...  No, I don't see any problem if some random user puts /sbin in
his path.  The only difference is he can simply type swapoff, instead of
having to type /sbin/swapoff.  Or in other words, he'll simply get bunch of
useless (for him) utilities included in shell's search path.
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