Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!csn!datran2!smb
From: smb@csn.org!datran2
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Help! ---> Can't load blk0 boot <-- ARGH!
Message-ID: <1991Feb1.032943.22233@csn.org!datran2>
Date: 1 Feb 91 03:29:43 GMT
References: <1991Jan31.184712.3159@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Jan31.200838.20947@csn.org!datran2> <1991Jan31.230434.12627@ni.umd.edu>
Organization: Data Transforms, Inc.
Lines: 31

In article <1991Jan31.230434.12627@ni.umd.edu> louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes:
>In article <1991Jan31.200838.20947@csn.org!datran2> smb@csn.org!datran2 writes:
>>I'll certainly be more careful NeXT time,
>>but I must confess that I fail to see the utility of an option to
>>reinitialize the boot hard drive.  I would strongly recommend that
>>this be changed before too many people shoot themselves in the foot.
>
>This isn't a problem if you don't log in as "root."  You should only have
>root privs. to perform system administration functions, and not routine
>use of the system.  Its too easy (as you've found out) to do awful damage
>before you notice what you've done.

I thought about it from this angle.  I think that the trouble is that it
is too close to another similar operation.  I know one should never ever
be root, but in practice as a system admin, I often am.  If a common
command such as rm -rf seems risky, one might alias rm to provide
interactive checking.  If I could set the permissions for formatting
the boot drive from the workspace so that not even root could do so,
I would.  Unfortunately this is not an option.  

I think my basic point is that there is a pot-hole in the sidewalk.  All
of the arguments that one should watch where one is going does not mean
that life would be easier without the pot-hole.

Steve.

-- 
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 #  Steve Boker           #  "Badgers, we don't have no stinking badgers"   #
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