Re: Which files in /usr/sbin?
On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, Peter Tobias wrote:
> Fernando wrote:
> > There is traceroute and ping, which my users could run to check whether I
> > lost the connection to the rest of the world , even though its main
[...]
> traceroute is /usr/sbin. There is no need for normal users to use
> traceroute (the same reasons are true for ifconfig/route). All they need
> to know is that a host _is_ reachable and not which way the packets go.
I disagree. Users want to know also where the connection is lost. For
example, their provider might be using Sprint and the other end Alternet.
If the connection is lost at Sprint's gateway, they can go back the next
day just in case it is fixed by then. If, on the other hand, the
connection is lost at Alternet, then they just wait a few seconds and try
again. At least this is my personal experience. Traceroute is important
to decide whether to wait or not.
> smail and rdate are normally not used by normal users. You can run httpd
> as a normal user but in most cases it's not necessary. And the purpose of
I disagree again. If your provider's clock is not accurate, you might
want to use some other host (rdate -p host). It may be critical to some
users to be able to do this.
Users can run a personal httpd as an alternative to mailing a huge binary.
You just mail a message telling the other end to retrieve the file via http.
That applies even if your sysadmin is not interested in running a Web server.
As for smail, you avoid many problems if retrieve your mail using
"popmail -c your.provider | /usr/sbin/rmail myname". That's something I do
every day as a user.
> > Maybe layout bugs/complaints should be forwarded to the Debian "layout
> > arbitrator". Who is currently close to being it?
>
> If you want to change things like that you should probably discuss it
> on the fsstnd (FHS) mailing list.
I don't _want_ to change anything. I just happened to receive a bug
report suggesting that I move a file from /usr/sbin to /usr/bin. When I
answered that I did not agree and I closed the bug report, the user
opened it again because he disagreed with me. This made me think that an
arbitrator is in fact necessary, because I don't _want_ to be discussing
the location of files much longer. Maybe someone is more interested than
I in doing that and he or she would be a good candidate for that position.
I just wanted to make it clear that the guidelines are too simplistic and
they don't cover all cases. There are two solutions to this kind of
conflicts: either it is left to the taste of each maintainer, which could
lead to inconsistencies, or someone acts as an arbitrator. My intention
was to open a discussion about this second possibility.
Regards,
Fernando Alegre
alegre@mars.superlink.net
Reply to: