Alternate Shells

[Herb Chong - DCS]

In article <615 at ucsfcgl.UUCP> arnold at ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold) writes:
>I helped make this decision -- it was because people who left their
>terminals unattended for a few minutes (to relieve themselves, say)
>would find themselves with a strange shell the next time they logged
>on.  This kind of prank became such a pain (besides being virtually
>unfixable without finding a super-user, a species of (alleged) person
>not always available when you have an assigment due the next morning)
>that we decided to turn off chsh to non-normal shells except for root.

but making changes to the list of "valid" shells inaccessible except 
by modification of source brings up several points:
1)	binary only sites require a super user's intervention 
	whenever a user wants to change shells (not often) to others
	that may be available (vsh, ksh, tcsh come to mind)
2)	the biggest computer security problem is still people.
	i never leave my terminal unattended.  either someone i
	trust watches it, i lock it up, or i lock the door, depending
	on where i am.
3)	a valid list that is compiled in or read from a file provides
	a lot more flexibility anyway

Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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