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Re: RFD: Essential packages, /, and /usr



On Tue, Jun 18, 2002 at 07:58:21AM -0400, Clint Adams wrote:
> > Notice "or some other nice English word"... when the admin puts binaries in
> > a $PATH, they need to be aware of the consequences. If they put something in
> > a place where it can replace a Debian binary, how do we know it's
> Why would someone, being told that '/usr/local is for the administrator;
> Debian doesn't touch it' assume that package scripts will go around
> running things in /usr/local?

Just because they've been told Debian won't put things in there, that
doesn't mean the things in there won't be run if they're in the PATH.

I don't think anyone would be surprised or dismayed for particularly long
at having, say, /usr/local/bin/dpkg executed instead of /usr/bin/dpkg if
/usr/local/bin happens to be earlier in their PATH. If, as a sysadmin, you
don't ever want that to happen, you should remove /usr/local/{bin,sbin}
(and /opt/bin and whatever else) from your PATH before running
dpkg. That's not overly onerous.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

     ``BAM! Science triumphs again!'' 
                    -- http://www.angryflower.com/vegeta.gif

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