Subject: Re: Changing root's shell to /bin/sh
To: Simon Burge <simonb@telstra.com.au>
From: Soren S. Jorvang <soren@t.dk>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 03/18/1999 02:37:19
On Thu, Mar 18, 1999 at 11:42:30AM +1100, Simon Burge wrote:
> "Soren S. Jorvang" wrote:
> 
> > Also, while I think /bin/sh would be more suitable as the
> > default root shell, a better generalization would perhaps
> > be to have init make a relaxed attempt at finding root's
> > shell from /etc/passwd and offer that when booting in
> > single-user mode?
> 
> I thought of that earlier, but then you'd have to do sanity checks on
> whether the filesystem that has the shell was mounted, whether or not
> it is a static binary, etc.  Just assume anything in /*bin is static?
> "Hairy".

init can just fall back to asking for a shell path or just start /bin/sh
instead if the real root shell fails.

[I forgot to suggest a little heresy in my previous mail, BTW. 
Why not just put tcsh and bash in /bin and be done with it? Sure,
they fit in well as packages, but they are so commonly used and shells
are nice to have static and available. It would add about ~10% to the
size of a distrib root filesystem.]


-- 
Soren