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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Where is zsh supposed to be? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all I have a quick question. Is it better for my zsh shell to be in /usr/bin/zsh or /bin/zsh. I remember reading that one of them would mess up the whole system since zsh is not posix compliant. I believe that szh shouldn't be set as the root shell. I now have it in /usr/bin/zsh, is that good? So now when I drop into a root shell I don't get they autocompletion feature that zsh has. I'd also lose that fancy theme. Does that mean my root shell is still bash? Thanks

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

#!/usr/bin/env zsh is better for portability/compatibility. You can set the root shell as whatever you want (including zsh). Leaking the user context with sudo -s is generally a bad idea. Unless you actually share a system with multiple users, I'd advise to set a root password and use su - in favor of sudo -i or sudo -s. Two (proper) passwords are more secure than one.

edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My collegues wouldn't appreciate my shell config in the root account, especially the vi bindings ;)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I understand the motivation of using the user environment in the root context. It's still a bad idea. The assumption is, that it is easier to compromise a non-privileged desktop user than the root account. Imagine some exploit breaking out of a sandbox and doing some minor modifications to your $HOME: either aliasing ls to a script somewhere in your home by changing your profile or some shell rc file, or prepending your $PATH environment variable with a folder burried somewhere in your home directory where a script ls is placed:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

if (( $EUID == 0 )); then
    # do something evil here
fi

\ls "$@"

Now, as an attacker you just wait for some admin on a shared system to come along and use sudo -s.