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

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 13:40:40 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 08:31:14 +0100, iceblink wrote:
>>On 2017-01-23 18:57, Ralf Mardorf wrote:  
>>>> On 23 Jan 2017, at 11:16, iceblink <iceblink at seti.nl> wrote:    
>>>     
>>>>     
>>>     
>>>> he typed "rm -rf /", typo, "TAB", something, "ENTER".    
>>> 
>>> And what is different, if somebody makes this typo using "sudo"? The
>>> same accident would happen. 1. Don't be root to delete something
>>> that doesn't require root privileges. 2. Don't use -rf, use -Ir.
>>> The same accident would happen when using sudo -i as well as when
>>> using sudo.    
>>
>>The difference is that you are asked for a password, and have 2
>>seconds to process in your brain what just happened. Those 2 seconds
>>make a world of difference if you have an Oops!-moment like the one I 
>>described...  
>
>That's nonsense!
>
>You would make the typo after "sudo" or after "sudo -i", so you gain no
>time at all.
>
>You won't type
>
>rm -rf / typo sudo
>
>you would type
>
>sudo rm -rf / typo
>
>and a typo becomes more likely if you type
>
>sudo foo
>sudo bar
>sudo n
>
>then when just typing
>
>sudo -i
>foo
>bar
>n
>
>because of the repeated sudo and the way the human brain works.
>
>Apart from this I wonder how slow you guess that people type their
>commands.
>
>It doesn't take 2 seconds to type sudo and nobody types sudo and then
>takes a rest of 2 seconds to reread the typed command several times.

Let alone that a default Ubuntu doesn't ask for the password each time
you use sudo. Maybe you reconfigured sudo or you are using an alias, so
perhaps your sudo actually is "sudo -k" ;).