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From: Vincent Lefevre on 29 Jan 2010 11:30
On 2010-01-29 10:07:51 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:59:23 -0500, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > For security reasons, it's better to run commands as
> > normal users rather than root.
>
> I tend to be pretty cavalier about that stuff. Some people
> go to seed on trying to issue absolutely every possible
> command that doesn't require root access as a non-root user.
> But to me, that's too much work to keep everything straight.
> To me, redefining hardware interfaces is a system
> administration task. If I'm doing system administration
> work, I become root. And when I'm finished with system
> administration work I go back to being an ordinary user
> again. The two things that are likely to change my habits
> are these:
[...]

However, "ifconfig -a" does not redefine hardware interfaces and
is not a system administration task. Asking a user to become root
to run this command is not a good advice.

Similarly, when one wants to build software that needs to be
installed as root, the build step can (and should) be done
as a normal user. Become root only when needed, i.e. for the
installation step.

--
Vincent Lef�vre <vincent(a)vinc17.net> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Ar�naire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)


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From: Stephen Powell on 29 Jan 2010 12:10
On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:05:34 -0500, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> However, "ifconfig -a" does not redefine hardware interfaces and
> is not a system administration task.

Strictly speaking, that is true. However, this "user" was
about to redefine his hardware interfaces; and issuing "ifconfig -a"
was one step in the overall process. The overall process *is* a
system administration task.

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:05:34 -0500, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Asking a user to become root
> to run this command is not a good advice.

If you feel strongly about this, then I suggest that you
file a bug report against the net-tools package and complain
that ifconfig should be moved from /sbin to /bin (or some other
directory in a normal user's path). As you know,
"ifconfig -a", issued verbatim by a normal user on a plain vanilla
Debian system, does not work unless the user has modified
his PATH variable.

As for me, I will continue to give advice based on what works
on a plain vanilla Debian system unless otherwise noted.
And you of course are free to disagree with me. Peace, my friend.


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From: T o n g on 29 Jan 2010 13:30
On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:48:19 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote:

> One other item in the
> procedure that I neglected to mention is to edit /etc/network/interfaces
> to make sure that it says eth0 instead of eth1.

Thanks Stephen for make it comprehensive and complete -- I was luck to
somehow have both eth0 & eth1 in /etc/network/interfaces to dodge the
problem.

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From: Stephen Powell on 29 Jan 2010 14:00
On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:20:30 -0500 (EST), Tong wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:48:19 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote:
>> One other item in the
>> procedure that I neglected to mention is to edit /etc/network/interfaces
>> to make sure that it says eth0 instead of eth1.
>
> Thanks Stephen for make it comprehensive and complete -- I was luck to
> somehow have both eth0 & eth1 in /etc/network/interfaces to dodge the
> problem.

You're welcome. And thanks also to Celejar, Vincent, Olaf, Boyd, and Chance,
all of whom contributed to the solution.


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From: Vincent Lefevre on 29 Jan 2010 20:30
On 2010-01-29 12:04:29 -0500, Stephen Powell wrote:
> If you feel strongly about this, then I suggest that you
> file a bug report against the net-tools package and complain
> that ifconfig should be moved from /sbin to /bin (or some other
> directory in a normal user's path). As you know,
> "ifconfig -a", issued verbatim by a normal user on a plain vanilla
> Debian system, does not work unless the user has modified
> his PATH variable.

"/sbin/ifconfig -a" will work, without needing to become root.
That would have been a better advice than asking the user to
run the command as root.

--
Vincent Lef�vre <vincent(a)vinc17.net> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Ar�naire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)


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