Re: vim

[Jon Dowland <jmtd@debian.org>]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 05:18:52AM -0800, james gray wrote:
> which vim
> /usr/bin/vim
> ls -l /usr/bin/vim
> lrwxrwxrwx -> etc/alternatives/vim
> ls -l etc/alternatives/vim
> lrwxrwxrwx -> /usr/bin/vim.basic

the name "/usr/bin/vim" is managed by the alternatives system (see
update-alternatives(8)) in order that the name can be used by more
than one Debian package, and so those packages can be co-installed.

So in my case:

	$ update-alternatives --list vim
	/usr/bin/vim.gnome

Slightly different results for the binary name 'vi':

	$ update-alternatives --list vi
	/usr/bin/elvisnox
	/usr/bin/vim.gnome
	/usr/bin/vim.tiny
	$ readlink -f $(which vi)
	/usr/bin/vim.gnome

> is there a for see able security issue coming from the programers view
> point , to have vim.basic with its file access as they are root root
> rwxr-xr-x.

No.

> can the end usr mutilate the file access and group of vim.basic and change
> to:
> 
> root admin rwxrwx---

The end-user couldn't, except by elevating to root via sudo or similar.
Why would you want to do this?