Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: Linux kernel source problem


From: peterw () USA NET (Peter W)
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 14:55:31 -0400


Unfortunately, many documents suggest doing this work as root. See
  http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/LDP/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.2

Some re-education may be in order. :-(

-Peter

cc: Brian Ward, the Kernel-HOWTO maintainer

At 10:06pm Oct 25, 1999, Alessandro Rubini wrote:

There is a (mostly useful) feature in "tar" [...]

So you do this as root, needing write access to /usr/src.

Sorry, it's a non-issue.  Nobody sane should ever untar anything using
root permissions. A tar file can include almost anything, including
device nodes or an open /etc/passwd.

In the specific Linux case, you don't need to extract sources in
/usr/src (I have them all over the place, and they compile fine). Even
if you want to do that in /usr/src, you'd better chown the directory
to your personal account and avoid working as root.


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