Why do all the sudo? [was Re: Software updater no longer functional]

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 22 Jan 2017 19:32:12 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>Serious user errors that happen from time to time are made of other
>issues.

An example, good practice

  su
  rm -i /path/*

bad practice

  sudo cd /path/
  sudo rm *

even

  su
  cd /path/
  rm *

would be more secure than the sudo approach.

The issue is, that a default sudo for good reasons doesn't require to
repeat the password each time you type sudo. If you use the cursor keys
to use a command from the history, you might be in another path and
repeat the remove command by accident. Yes, humans make accidents, but
sudo for single commands is more dangerous in this regard, but not
that much. To protect better against accidents, the work-flow is
important, IOW e.g. use "rm -i /path/..." instead of "cd /path/...".