One of my classmates from MIT (i.e., an old guy who has been using Unix for nearly 20 years) thought that his personal Web/mail server had been hacked. The GNU/Linux machine was behaving inexplicably and not doing any of the things that it had been configured to do. Last night he finally figured out why. Logged in as root he’d tried to list a tar file from another computer. But he got one character of the incantation wrong and instead wrote the tar file over the existing file system. Basically all of the files in /etc were replaced by /etc files from the old computer, which had a different set of users/passwords and was in a different network.
I’m not going to say who it is because he’d be embarrassed but perhaps the incident reveals something general: people over the age of 25 shouldn’t use Unix/GNU/Linux/whatever, unless they are full-time professional Unix sysadmins. The dialog boxes on WinXP are annoying but for those of us nearing 40 perhaps it would be nice to have the computer ask “Are you sure that you want to overwrite all the most critical files on this machine?”
My instrument instructor in Alaska was 77 years old at the time that I got my rating. Tom Wardleigh had 33,000 hours of flying experience including 15,000 hours on floats and was considered perhaps the best flight instructor in the state of Alaska. His son had refused to learn to fly, despite his proximity to such a renowned instructor and all of the freedom that flying brings in a state with substantially no roads. One of the things that Tom’s son had noticed was how many times his father went out to search for pilots who had crashed. His stated reason for never learning to fly: “I don’t want to do something where the opposite of perfection is death.”
Being root on Unix is sort of like that.
Sharp tools, deep cuts.
If his machine was configured in a typical fashion, he had to make a conscious decision to log in as root and have administrative access to the machine. Sharp contrast to Windows where the default is to give every user full administrative access, all the time. This is one of the reasons viruses run wild in the Windows world – your email reader can stomp on any file in the system. Warning dialogs are just a band-aid. Blunt tools, big bruises.
Philip, You still have some good years. It’s ok. You shouldn’t be scared of Unix/GNU/Linux/whatever. 🙂
You can’t call yourself a competent sysadmin until you’ve turned at least one functioning machine into a rock. That’s why God created backups.
erm, I think all this means is that people over 25 shouldn’t be *ROOT*. Neither should people under 25 either, at least not without very good reason.
As a compromise, the warning you describe should perhaps appear whenever one logs in as root.
Maddie: You are too old and fat to be jumping fences.
Rooster Cogburn: Well, come see a fat old man some time! [jumps the fence] [rather, sits on horse that jumps the fence]
Seven times out of 10, I log in as root. Haven’t nailed myself yet, but that’s like being a biker that doesn’t have a dented gas tank.
My emacs though does know enough to change its status bar to red when I am root. (It’s not smart enough to follow my emacs shell through many levels of ssh to determine when I am or am not root.)
I don’t have a dented gas tank either.
(I did fall over, but it was into the very soft sand at Fort Funston, that lernt me the lesson to remember to park on a flattened coke can.)
Okay, one more.
My primary flight instructor (1981) was in the 32 Olympics as a swimmer, during WWII she was a WASP ferrying P-51s, and later she was a powder puff derby winner.
She’s fessed up to performing 14 turn spins over what later became LAX and then going back for more (nowadays I believe that spin training, which is optional, instructs the instructors to recover after two spins lest it become a flat spin.)
During my college days she was clearly gaining at least 6-8 hours per day. She had a gazillion hours.
All that said, I actually identify quite a bit with Tom Wardleigh’s son’s sentiments. The reward for flying is high, but the error function is very severe.
And not all unix is that hard to use. There’s always OS X. My parents, who are very much computer novices, have had no problems with it at all. I do agree though that Linux would be difficult for the average person on the street to set up and use to the level they would be able to use Windows or a Mac.
And I agree, just about every sysadmin I know has at least one stupid sysdmin mistake they made. Mine has to do with doing rm -rf * in /usr (yes, I was young and foolish). The great thing was being able to grab a backup tape and fix it completely without needing to even reboot the machine.
Which is why Mac users hate UNIX, completely.
The typical Windows user doesn’t even READ dialog boxes or error messages, though, so that’s hardly a big deal. My mom and sister have both thoroughly trashed their Windows machine on more than one occasion by deleting files they shouldn’t even have been messing around with in the first place.
1) Being logged in as root is always a bad idea. It requires care. I wish age had something to do with it, but it doesn’t. I have seen this type of event happen more frequently with young neophytes than older experienced users. Philip, it sounds like it is time to get the rocking chair and slippers out.
2) There are new UIs to use for Linux, but many individuals still prefer using emacs and shell. People stick with the UI they are comfortable with, even if a newer interface offers better protection against mistakes. They know the risk, they judge them against, and then act accordingly. (By the way, ever watch a Windows user clean up their hard drive? The Wndows directory is often one of the first places they start deleting files from.)
3) Yes, I definitely think everyone should avoid any risk. No matter how small, avoid it! No butter, no alcohol, no unprotected sex (even with your spouse), no sun, no artificial sweeteners, no car rides, no plane trips, etc. Really, isn’t life just a measure of risks. People don’t think twice about getting in their car without buckling up, jay-walking, drinking one-too-many beers. The opposite of perfection can be death. So what? Life is risk. How dull it would be otherwise. Tom’s son was either an idiot to pass up a chance to share that experience with his father, or very astute about measuring his innate lack of abilities. I vote the former.
“Sharp contrast to Windows where the default is to give every user full administrative access, all the time.”
Well, no, unless you’re talking about the version of Windows that ran from DOS and couldn’t have overlapping windows on the desktop. XP gives you an explicit choice as to whether you run with full privileges.
“The typical Windows user doesn’t even READ dialog boxes or error messages, though, so that’s hardly a big deal.”
Perhaps, but the issue PhilG raised relates to persons who would otherwise be running a Unix variant.
There is something to be said for XP’s System Restore points (basically a versioning and backup system of important settings, drivers, …?)
I’ve found it has failed me more often than it has helped, but on one or two occasions it certainly did help me out.
Philip, I am curious how old your instructor was when you started your rating? Kidding.
“Which is why Mac users hate UNIX” Gee, and I thought I was a Mac user who really liked unix for the last however many years. MacOS X is probably one of the best things to ever happen to the Mac…
Think before you press return… Never log in as root, use sudo instead…
>Tom’s son was either an idiot to pass up a chance to share that
> experience with his father, or very astute about measuring his innate
> lack of abilities. I vote the former.
Chill out man. Macs are cool, unix is sharp, flying is alright. I don’t know Tom Wardleigh. Let’s not call his son an idiot. This is the internet. Let’s all get along. You’re okay. I’m okay. Tom and his son are cool. Thanks!
I find it interesting that your brother also engages in an activity in which the relationship between perfection and death is similarly defined:
http://www.greenspun.com/harry/bikes.htm
It must be in the genes.
Reminds me of the time I thought ‘hmm, I think I’ll patch and recompile the kernel so I can get better ACPI support.’ Hehe. It took me eight hours in front of the computer to get it to boot again. This machine will be running Redhat’s stock 2.4.20-8 until the sun goes out, because I am not going through that ever again for love or money.
I’m afraid the Unix-Haters have the argument here. For example compare the keystrokes to delete the emacs backup files in /etc with another similar set of keystrokes: ‘rm /etc/*~’ amd ‘rm /etc/* ~’ One of my friends typed the latter, and meant the former. He looked, noticed his mistake, and went to press delete. His finger was 1/4″ too low, and hit enter instead…
I’m typing this on a Linux box, but I hope I’m not too blinded by the ideology to ignore the short commings of UNIX. I agree this is a hard problem, but once someone (like Novel Netware, Plan 9, et c.) solves it I’m sure we’ll kick ourselves for not seeing the light earlier. Back in the day you could buy a Novel Fileserver, plug it in, and forget about it (the story goes that they would be occasionally found under piles of paper.) The question should probabily be “Why do I have to administer this stupid computer anyway?”
If you want a friendly unix try AIX. It has the smitty interface that will actually allow a person as dumb as an NT admin perform most tasks without figuring out the command flags. And every man page there has an example at the end! ‘man tar’ for instance has nine examples for your old friend to look at (‘man tar’ on linux has zero examples, OTOH).
This is why ‘rm’ should be an alias for ‘rm -i’ [ even for root ]
which prompts you about file ReMoval, but not if you specify -f though : |
no idea is flawless, no *nix user infallible : )