Re: horse carcas flogging (was: traceroute in /usr/bin, not /usr/sbin)
On 25 Jun 2001 at 22:20 (-0700), Adam McKenna wrote:
| On Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 10:25:11PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
| > Steve Greenland wrote:
| > > So you're doing basic network diagnostics. It's an admin *function*
| > > (as opposed to composing and sending e-mail, for instance).
Not at all. If I'm driving my car and I hear a strange sound coming
from one of my tires then I look at the tires when I stop my car, I
am not being a mechanic -- I am simply satisfying a curiousity.
| > Not really, it's being a good network citizen.
| >
| > People who are only interested in using email also have gone on record as using
| > traceroute as a tool to track down a spammer's ISP (and the ISP's ISP
| > and so on, as necessary), to complain about spammers. These people are
| > not admins.
|
| If they're running it from their own machine at home, then they ARE admins.
| Everyone is the admin of the machine(s) they personally own.
|
| If they're running it from an ISP's server, it's because the ISP (foolishly)
| decided to make traceroute available to them -- that's the ISP's every right,
| but that doesn't change the fact that traceroute is primarily an admin tool.
quoting /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/fhs/fhs.html/fhs-3.10.html
Deciding what things go into "sbin" directories is simple: If a
normal (not a system administrator) user will ever run it directly,
then it should be placed in one of the "bin" directories. Ordinary
users should not have to place any of the sbin directories in their
path.
When I am _not_ root on my box, I am most definitely _not_ acting in
an administrative capacity, and I _have_ found cause to run traceroute
while not root, as I'm sure many other users have.
cheers.
Brent
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