[buug] Lost root access

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Skip Evans (evans at ncseweb.org):

> Someone else installed bash on my machine, but it got installed
> in /usr/local/bin.
> 
> I assumed it had been put in /bin
> and did a chsh on root because I need to compile a port that requires
> root to be using the bash shell.

By the way, that's a non-sequitur.

If you need to do something in bash, just start /usr/local/bin/bash
from your normal root-user shell.  When you're done, exit bash.  

If memory serves, the root account on FreeBSD is /bin/sh (a Bourne
shell).  If I'm correct in remembering that, then it's possible that
there are system dependencies, e.g., in scripts that run as root, on
Bourne shell behaviour.  Bash is an excellent shell (say I), but it is
not 100% Bourne-compatible, especially Bash 2.x.

Because I don't have a FreeBSD host at my disposal at the moment, the
foregoing relies on memory, and may have flaws in some details -- in
which case, I'm sure someone, noting my domain name, will take great
delight in whapping me over the head for it.  But I stand by the general
point, that you don't want to fsck around with root's environment,
regardless.

-- 
Cheers,      "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first
Rick Moen     woman she meets, and then teams up with three complete strangers
rick at linuxmafia.com       to kill again."  -- Rick Polito's That TV Guy column,
              describing the movie _The Wizard of Oz_