commands as super-user (was: JEdit)

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2008-01-03 at 09:52 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-01-02 at 22:43 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 
> > It is probably slightly impractical if you have say 10 commands
> > one after the other.
> 
> This is true and we haven't decided a best practice here.  The reason we
> use 'su -c' is that avoids having to point to a sudo how-to.
> 
> We probably need to decide that switching to root is OK at some point.
> You lose a layer of security auditing, but make the user's life much
> easier.  Then we can teach either the 'su -' or 'su -c "/bin/bash"'
> methods.

I think if we're dealing with an audience of desktop users, we should
use 'su -c' for three or fewer administrator commands in a procedure,
and 'su -' followed by the commands in a root shell for longer lists.
If the audience is administrators, I would think we should point to our
sudo guidance.  Which reminds me...

> Another option is to have a standard paragraph at the start of all
> documents.  It says something like:
> 
>         We use the 'su -c' option for commands, but an easier method
>         over the long-term is to go through the steps in this [Sudo
>         How-to].  Thereafter, replace the 'su -c' option with 'sudo' and
>         remove the "" from around the command.

...that we should probably condense the sudo tutorial and include it in
the Administrator Guide, referring to it there in documentation that
needs it.  Just an idea.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
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           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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