[TUHS] rm command

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2018, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Apr 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
>> On early PDP-11 Unixes, 'rm' is an ordinary program, and 'rmdir' is 
>> setuid-root, since it has to do special magic (writing into directory 
>> files, etc). Given that, it made sense to have 'rm' run with the least 
>> amount of privilege needed to do its job.
>
> I am constantly bemused by the number of "setuid root" commands, when a 
> simple "setgid whatever" will achieve the same task.
>
> My mantra has always been: "If you think you need setuid root, then you are 
> probably thinking wrong."
>
> My favourite here is the "ps" command:
>
>    On my FreeBSD server:
>
> 	% ls -l /bin/ps
> 	-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  35640 Oct 15  2017 /bin/ps
>
>    On my crappy MacBook:
>
> 	% ls -l /bin/ps
> 	-rwsr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  51200 Jul 15  2017 /bin/ps
>
> (I didn't check my Penguin box, because I don't think that I'll like what 
> I'll see.)
>
> -- Dave
>

Debian 9:

nicci at jesustheasus:~$ ls -l $(which ps)
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 129336 Nov 22  2016 /bin/ps

Debian 8 kFreeBSD:

[usotsuki at licca ~]$ ls -l $(which ps)
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 93088 Mar  6  2015 /bin/ps

-uso.