From: Romain B. <to...@ra...> - 2011-09-29 13:19:52
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2011/9/29 David Baelde <dav...@gm...>: > Hi, Hi all! > To put it simply: when it is about being root, the question should not > be "why not be root" but "why be root". If you can do it as a normal > user, you should. > > Concretely, there is a bug somewhere in the generated configure script > that erases /dev/null. If run as root, this is REALLY annoying. If run > as a normal user, nothing happens. > > Building (make && make doc) should also be done as non-priviledged > user. Only make install requires root priviledges. To insist on what david just said: consider that configure scripts do a ton of obscur things to your system that you have no control over and that you will never be able to know about, even if the source is available. Thus, you should not run it as root, and the same goes for anything that you cannot trust.. The only exception being of course installing software.. BTW, concerning configure, this is really not a joke. Configure macros are so obscure that some believe they would be a perfect place to hide a trojan or some malicious code.. Most developpers generate their configure scripts automatically and will not check them.. Just saying.. :-) Romain |