[arm-allstar] General Observation

[Tony Ross]

On 05/16/2017 08:43 PM, "Nathaniel Biser via arm-allstar" wrote:
> The one consistency that I have read and heard about Linux is that you
> shouldn't run as root on a regular basis.  The specific reasons escape me
> at the moment but I'm gonna go out on the limb and hypothesize that it's
> because if your system was compromised, and you are running as root, it
> would be much more detrimental then if you were running as a user.
>
> I am curious as to why is the Allstar software page defaults to running as
> root upon installation.  Like I said, I am only a student in all of this
> but I would like to hear the pros and cons of doing so.

It seems to me that an allstar radio-capable node is run from the radio 
more than the desktop. The only reason for any login would be for system 
maintenance or modification which requires root privilege anyway, even 
if only a simple bash shell "tail -f /var/log/asterisk/ messages", but 
the provided lsnodes_web is even better. The "tail -f ..." does provide 
better diagnostic indications of errors as they happen though.

The main reason why one shouldn't be casual about a root login is that 
simple mistakes can be catastrophic system-wide, so do what needs to be 
done and exit. The menu-driven login does the job while protecting the 
system from the inadvertent typographical errors which we all can make.