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From: cc-06@ucbcory.BERKELEY.EDU (Ilya Goldberg)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Please do NOT use "/bin/test" as a command name
Message-ID: <11193@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 10-Dec-85 00:42:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11193
Posted: Tue Dec 10 00:42:19 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Dec-85 03:16:17 EST
References: <313@bdaemon.UUCP> <13400016@mirror.UUCP> <1016@sdcsla.UUCP> <1019@utcs.uucp>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: cc-06@ucbcory.UUCP (Ilya Goldberg)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <1019@utcs.uucp> ian@utcs.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin) writes:
>I'm equally against the practice of putting /bin/rm, /bin/mv, etc
>into shell files. Please use rm, mv, etc, rather than the full paths.
>You don't know what might motivate me to have my own version of rm
>(indeed, you probably don't want to know what motivates me :=!). Please use 
>the facilities that UNIX provides. Don't negate UNIX's wonderful generality 
>for the benefit of a few nanoseconds.
>
>Ian Darwin
>Toronto, Canada

	Ian, no one is trying to save cpu time by doing what they are doing.
Just think of what would happen if the user doesn't have the right things
in his/her path variable or no path at all!

	Also, I would love to try to break into a system kept secure by your
shell scripts which do not contain absolute path names.  I would do exactly
what you suggest - substitute my own versions of rm, mv, etc so that when
a set-u-id root shell script tries to execute one of those, UNIX will take
the version in my directory.  My version will perform whatever I want it to.
including things you might not want me to.

	So, when writing programs/shell scripts which call other programs
do include full path names, preferrably in a place where they are easily
found and can be easily modified (e.g. ".h" files).

						Ilya	(...!ucbvax!ilya)