>>>>> On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:36:44 GMT, i18rabbit@cwazy.co.uk said:

> and they can't determine who you
> are (eg, you can't find out that you are root on a broken
> machine as opposed to a regular user on a working machine).

It's pretty easy to determine whether you are root or not
by the statement below:
	if [ -w / ]; then
		I am super user...
	else
		I am random user...
	fi

>  forces one to remember OS specific things like
> "/sbin/sysctl -n kern.ostype"

Well, you don't have to remember that, you can use
	if [ -x /bin/uname ]; then
		ostype=`uname`
	elif [ -x /sbin/sysctl ]; then
		ostype=`sysctl -n kern.ostype`
	else
		...
in your script.
--
soda