4 ms·

Even if you have su privileges you aren't using them all the time. You may have scripts launched by an unprivileged user that in turn run as root. There are sim

• ggm 1y ago
  I didn't literally mean 'sbin is useless' -more that the days when we believed there was some constraint on being able to run some commands ended, when we stopped thinking those commands were run by other people, and instead run by ourselves. Now, it has become routine to include /sbin and /usr/sbin in the PATH, and so we find ourselves having to su(do) thing, because we forget that it may look "runnable" and be found, but demands privilege to execute. In days of yore when I started my journey, we didn't give ordinary logins these elements in PATH, and we believed in our UID/GID protection rings as well because sudo didn't exist. To be admitted to knowing the root password demanded you do the stonecutters walk of shame with the rock round your neck into the operations room at the end by the Dec-10. You also got the key to the cupboard where all the serial lines terminated, and access to a kettle and tin of bad instant coffee.