[afnog] Installing MRTG via /usr/ports on a FReeBSD 5.3 releasebox fails

[Brian Candler]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 11:51:23AM +0200, David Peall wrote:
> > The fact that FreeBSD uses tcsh for root's shell is one of 
> > its few remaining bugbears; this makes it almost liveable with.
> 
> You can change the shell vipw and edit it to /usr/local/bin/bash for
> instance?
> 
> David Peall :: Systems Administrator
> e-Schools' Network :: http://www.esn.org.za/ 
> Phone +27 (021) 674-9140

You can, but there are reasons not to do so. If you need to reboot your
system into single-user mode for repairs, then the /usr filesystem won't be
available until you mount it, and that means you won't have access to your
shell. Having said that, I *think* /sbin/init lets you choose a different
shell when going into single user mode, but I'm not sure.

ISTR that older FreeBSD systems had two uid=0 accounts, 'root' and 'toor',
for this reason. However I don't see 'toor' these days.

If your shell is under /usr, then you will find you are unable to unmount
/usr while the system is running. If you are upgrading the 'bash' package
and a problem occurs, you could also find yourself in a sticky situation.
Neither of these is common, but they are worth bearing in mind.

Regards,

Brian.