Han Soo Chang wrote: > Here is what happened. > > $sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree > then I typed my password. > ----- > ERROR: wget failed to download This is unllkely to have anything to do with either sudo or su. I think this failure is unrelated. > I checked the following > $ LANG="en_US.utf8" wget -v > http://people.debian.org/~bartm/flashplugin-nonfree/fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc > --2012-04-30<http://people.debian.org/%7Ebartm/flashplugin-nonfree/fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc--2012-04-30>14:42:43-- > http://people.debian.org/~bartm/flashplugin-nonfree/fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc > Resolving ns14... 10.1.1.12 > Connecting to ns14|10.1.1.12|:8080... connected. > Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK > Length: 1273 (1.2K) [text/plain] > fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc: Permission denied That permission denied came from the server. If you do not have permission to write the local file the error would have said one of these depending upon locale and wget version. Cannot write to “fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc” (Permission denied). Or: Cannot write to `fp10.sha512.amd64.pgp.asc' (Permission denied). And of course if you are root then root always (in a normal typical system ignoring selinux, filesystem attributes, and other less common configurations) has permission to write to the local filesystem. > Next, I did this > > $su > Then I typed my password > # apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree > > And it succeeded. Probably the upstream problem was resolved and this was then allowed. When external influences cause success and failure outside of your carefully designed experiment it can cause a lot of confusion. > So, it seems that when I invoked the command under sudo, the script > invoked by the command tried to write a file to a directory, but > failed because of denied permission. But when I invoked it under > superuser, it succeeded. Again, I think this was due to upstream failures on the web server and not related to your use of sudo or su. > So, I wonder whether this is because > (1) I mishandled my set up of sudo You can test this. Type in: $ sudo id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) $ sudo sh -c 'echo $PATH' /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin > (2) this is a subtle bug of packaging of flashplugin-nonfree, Perhaps. There are some liberties taken with setting HOME so as to work in the typical case. Could be a problem for you. But I doubt it. > (3) this is a feature of flashplugin-nonfree package unavoidable for some > security reason I don't think so. > (4) Debian culture commands that I become superuser instead of using sudo. No. Definitely not. I think sudo is strongly in the Debian culture. I usually give instructions using sudo. Your view may be clouded by who is most vocal in responding to messages *this week*. But on average it has a strong following. Bob
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