Re: Bug#688799: grub-common: grub-mknetdir does not need to be run by root -- move out of sbin?

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 02:06:46PM -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> I observe that grub-mknetdir works fine as a non-privileged user.
> Making it an "administrator-only" tool by placing it in /usr/sbin/
> seems like it encourages people to update their tftp server
> directories as root, when they don't necessarily need extra privileges
> to do that.
> 
> Maybe it belongs in /usr/bin instead?
> 
> 0 address@hidden:~/tmp$ /usr/sbin/grub-mknetdir 
> --net-directory=/home/dkg/netdir
> Netboot directory for i386-pc created. Configure your DHCP server to point to 
> /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.0
> 0 address@hidden:~/tmp$ 

It's a reasonable argument, yes.  If we do this, I think it should be
upstream, as in the following patch.  What do folks on grub-devel think?

=== modified file 'Makefile.util.def'
--- Makefile.util.def   2012-09-22 20:19:58 +0000
+++ Makefile.util.def   2012-09-25 21:48:23 +0000
@@ -487,8 +487,8 @@ script = {
 };
 
 script = {
-  mansection = 8;
-  installdir = sbin;
+  mansection = 1;
+  installdir = bin;
   name = grub-mknetdir;
 
   common = util/grub-mknetdir.in;

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       address@hidden