tcsh for root -- ok or not?

Jon Hamilton hamilton at kickapoo.cs.iastate.edu
Tue Apr 9 10:58:19 AEST 1991


jc at condor.bu.edu (James Cameron) writes:

>>>>>> On 8 Apr 91 03:30:15 GMT, jik at athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) said:

>jik> In article <GPLAN.91Apr4220138 at sun9.aer.com>, gplan at sun9.aer.com (George Planansky) writes:
>jik> |> I'd like to use tcsh as root's shell (specified in the passwd file entry).
>jik> |> Will that cause me problems?  

>jik>   I see no problem with this (we do it here).  Make sure your tcsh binary is
>jik> in /etc/shells, though.


>jik> Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:

>The only "problem" with using tcsh as the default root shell is that
>when you want to upgrade your operating system, the new one might not
>come with tcsh (at least SunOS has yet to do so.)  So, just remember
>to change your shell before the upgrade and things are fine...otherwise
>root won't be able to log in multi-user.

On my machine (running A/UX), if your login shell can't be started for some
reason (disk not mounted or file not present, whatever), you get a message to
the effect "can't exec /usr/local/bin/tcsh, exec'ing /bin/sh instead.", and
it proceeds to start the bourne shell instead.  This only occurs for root.
>--
>					-- James Cameron  (jc at raven.bu.edu)

>Signal Processing and Interpretation Lab.  Boston, Mass  (617) 353-2879
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>"But to risk we must, for the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.  For
>the man or woman who risks nothing, has nothing, does nothing, is nothing."
>	(Quote from the eulogy for the late Christa McAuliffe.)

--
Jon Hamilton
hamilton at kickapoo.cs.iastate.edu
 " I feel a lot more like I do now that I did before I got here "
   - can't remember who



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