Features/SbinSanity

= /sbin sanity =

Summary
Fix problems arising from the split between  and.

Owner

 * WillWoods, JesseKeating, AdamJackson, PeterJones, et. al.

Current status

 * Targeted release: Fedora 10
 * Last updated: September 11, 2008
 * Percentage of completion: 100%

Detailed Description
Historically, Fedora enforces the split between  and   by leaving   and   out of the   for normal users. However, binaries that are commonly used for information-gathering by normal users should not be placed out of their reach. Things that are commonly run with  should also be in.

Therefore, we should either be smarter about where binaries are located or change the default PATH.

Benefit to Fedora
This is possibly the most common Fedora FAQ. It's the first problem that anyone new to Fedora encounters and it causes people annoyance for no real gain.

Scope
Change the default  to include   for all users. Note that it must come at the end of the path for normal users, or  will break.

Packages and files to change

 * - for bash, zsh, etc.
 * - for csh, tcsh, etc.
 * - for csh, tcsh, etc.

Test Plan
Ensure that the system starts as expected, without messages about missing binaries or anything similar.

The following commonly-used commands should run normally:

sudo service iptables status ifconfig

-based apps should still prompt for the root password and run normally. Examples: system-config-users system-config-boot

User Experience
Things like  and   work as expected for normal users.

People are no longer baffled by "missing" binaries after using.

Dependencies
A patch that implements these changes is in bug 458176.

The required changes were made September 3 and are included in.

Contingency Plan
Revert the change to and everything goes back to the way it was.

Documentation
None needed

Release Notes
has been added to the  for normal users, to simplify command-line administration tasks.

Comments and Discussion
See Talk:Features/SbinSanity