Re: [gentoo-user] Re: I lost the ability to boot into single user

[Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org>]

On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 01:20 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > In a pinch, you can also use the argument init=/bin/bash to get a
> > bash shell up without using init.  It's saved me a CD or a heap of
> > trouble a few times.
> 
> Wait until some bastard runs
> 
> mv /bin/bash /bin/bash.gotcha
> 
> then you try init=/bin/bash :-)
> 
> It causes utter carnage, without another shell handy, you do need a CD
> to get 
> around that one.

Hmm.. let's see, who could successfully run that command?

$ ls -ld /bin /bin/bash
4.0K drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K 2009-08-17 12:56 /bin/
864K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 861K 2009-08-15 20:46 /bin/bash*

Oh, the same "bastard" who can 'passwd root' or 'rm -rf /' or pretty
much  anything else.

So if you have a person who has the capability and will to do that then
I think you have far more to worry about.

So the moral to the story is don't give root access to "bastards".