$HOME/bin

[Ralf Corsepius]

Michal Hlavinka wrote:
>> Paul W. Frields wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 02:08:55PM +0200, Ondřej Vašík wrote:
>>>> Stefan Assmann wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I was wondering why there's no $HOME/bin directory and $HOME/bin not
>>>>> mentioned in the $PATH variable. Any particular reason not to have that
>>>>> by default?
>>>> $HOME/bin is not on every system and the other default directories in
>>>> default PATH are(at least on the most of systems ;) ). However, some
>>>> Linux distros do add something as:
>>>> # set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
>>>> if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
>>>> PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
>>>> fi
>>>> as default - so this dir gets added automatically when does exist.
>>>> I'm generally +1 for changing the default that way - as it would not
>>>> change anything for users without that directory.
>>> I would only want this at the *end* of the current PATH, not the
>>> beginning, for obvious security reasons.
>> 1. Your practice to a wide extend defeats one prime rationale for ~/bin:
>> Replacing/Overriding vendor-provided applications by per-user installed
>> versions.
>>
>> 2. Unless using ~/bin as root, these files are user-installed binaries,
>> which under normal circumstances may only have security impacts on user
>> files => What you call "obvious security reasons" are minor concerns.
> 
> if "su" (instead of "su -") is used, root will inherit user's environment 
> including PATH.
Yes, but ... we are talking about ordinary users here, not about users 
who have root access. These people have other means to install packages.

For ordinary users, prepending ~/bin to $PATH is the only approach e.g. 
to replace vendor-supplied applications, the "security risks" are almost 
non-existent.

Ralf