Problems with ifconfig in Fedora 8

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 07:02 -0400, Mike Burger wrote:
> > On 22/04/2008, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >>  There's a reason that ordinary users don't include /sbin:  There can be
> >>  commands in /bin and /sbin with the same command name, but to do
> >>  slightly different roles.  The root user will use the first one if
> >>  finds, the one in /sbin, which may allow them to do more than what an
> >>  ordinary user can do with the /bin command.
> >
> > We really ought to fix that :o) the issue is one of ordering more than
> > actual inclusion in the path, i.e. the order should for /bin,/sbin
> > (for each of /usr/local, /usr, /) for users and /sbin,/bin (likewise)
> > for root.
> 
> IMO, the proper fix should be to have one version of the command, in one
> location.  If there are functions that require root privileges to run, and
> the user running the command is not root, then have the command pop up a
> message indicating that the specified option(s) require root privileges.
> 
> This is standard in a lot of apps and commands...why shouldn't it be so
> for base OS commands?

IIRC, the stuff in /sbin doesn't assume you have a GUI, so "popping up"
is not really an option.

poc