Re: '.' in path, summary

["Binand Raj S." <binand@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

BGanesh forced the electrons to say:
> Hi,
> 
> This time BGanesh gently blackmailed the electrons into saying :
> 
> > See above.  If  you  are  sure  none of your users will be using
> > gzexe, you may do that. But, such a program is discouraged.
> 
> Any particular reasons why such a program be A Bad Thing ?

The  same  reasons - I don't know which programs legitimately use
/tmp to create temporary executables. I myself have had the  need
for  doing  so (when I am trying to update a file, I find it easy
to create executable sed script files in /tmp with dynamic infor-
mation in them. Not the best of all methods, but it works). Also,
what about the subdirectories of /tmp? Configure scripts generat-
ed  via GNU Autoconf checks for various features of your compiler
implementation by generating test C code, compiling and at times,
executing them.

The  point is, there is no reason for one to keep a check on /tmp
for executables. When I was in IITB, there was a time when I  had
only  1MB  of disk space on our Digital server. I couldn't manage
all my number crunching code in that  limited  space.  So  I  had
makefiles  that  created  a.outs  in /tmp/binand. I wouldn't have
liked it if a paranoic sysadm removed my files from /tmp the  mo-
ment they were created.

So,  I  suggest  it is better to remove '.' from your PATH rather
than going through all the work of writing a daemon  to  keep  an
eye  on /tmp. You will have to keep that program running at other
places as well, like /var/tmp or /home/anyuser; why  bother?  And
you will not lose many friends too!

Binand

- -- 
main(int c,char **v){while(!fork()){strcpy(v[0],tmpnam(0));sleep(1);}}
A program that changes its name and pid every second.
Try this program at your own risk!   ---> Binand <---

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