Misleading message in 'su' info document

Thornton Prime thornton at yoyoweb.com
Tue Aug 19 13:55:28 UTC 2003


> > In my opinion such historical baggage is harmful and should be pulled
> > from at least Red Hat's copy of the 'su' info page.
> > 
> > Any opinions?

I am against any change. The default behavior is documented correctly.
The fact that one can achieve a different result has nothing to do
specifically with su. There are a few different ways of limiting su
privileges, one being PAM, another by removing the public execute bit of
su and making the file group wheel. The GNU su code itself does not
impose limits, and probably never should.

RMS's antecdote is amusing, and one may not agree with it, but it both
states the default behavior and it provides a rationale for it.

thornton





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