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Do not use redirection characters in your shell prompt

(tanelpoder.com)
217 points tanelpoder | 2 comments | 17 Mar 21 14:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.441s | source
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theamk ◴[17 Mar 21 14:57 UTC] No.26492113[source]▶
Agree with the author, "do not run as root" is a great point. Prefix the required commands with sudo instead!

And even with "sudo", limit the exposure -- sometimes you can sudo to specific user/group instead of more general root.

replies(1): >>26493004 #
jimmaswell ◴[17 Mar 21 16:01 UTC] No.26493004[source]▶
I've run as root whenever possible for over a decade with 0 problems. I'm not going to relegate myself to constantly asking my own computer for permission to do anything. Same for UAC turned off in Windows, just don't run viruses.
replies(1): >>26494029 #
aidenn0 ◴[17 Mar 21 17:10 UTC] No.26494029[source]▶
Have you never accidentally bumped the middle mouse button while your mouse cursor was over a terminal?
replies(3): >>26494231 #>>26494717 #>>26496748 #
Aransentin ◴[17 Mar 21 17:23 UTC] No.26494231[source]▶
I'm unsure if "protection against accidents" is that relevant for deciding to have a root terminal open or not. Even if the clipboard contained some destructive "delete everything" command plus an newline character, all the files I actually care about is in my home directory and can easily be wiped by my regular non-root user.
replies(1): >>26494827 #
1. aidenn0 ◴[17 Mar 21 18:08 UTC] No.26494827[source]▶
What about all the files other people using the machine care about?
replies(1): >>26495351 #
2. Aransentin ◴[17 Mar 21 18:53 UTC] No.26495351[source]▶
Yeah, my reply naturally only works for personal computers, e.g. my laptop/desktop system where it's very unlikely anybody else but me will use it. For corporate servers where you have traceability requirements and such it's an entirely different question.