ROOT_HOME: /home/root

ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

Hi,

Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
philosophy [1]?

It is not an unusual that the /home partition is a separate, and the
sysadmins would like to manage the core system without getting that
partition mounted, etc.

It is true that it would be possible to work that around, but /root as
a default just feels so much more natural on a Unix system.

What I currently see after talking to a few people, the people keep
changing it in their layer (distribution) config. It looks sub-optimal
at first, but perhaps there are still valid reasons to keep this
around?

I was told on IRC the first embedded debian may have done it to keep
rootfs read-only. First, you can remount the root partition on jffs2,
ubifs, etc... as R/W.

Even if you could not, you can have a separate /root partition which
is a good idea anyway to keep the super-user separate from the
"regular" users. If that is not OK, there is still the option for the
minority to override it to /home/root if really needed, but I
personally do not think it should be...

So, all in all, I am in favor of changing this back to /root to be
more linux-y and well-separated from the normal users.

Unfortunately, it would lead to some breakages out there when they
update Yocto, so it may not be acceptable in this project. I do not
know the rules. The migration could be aided though with some proper
documentation.

Cheers, L.

[1] FHS 2.3 still says  /root : Home directory for the root user (optional)

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Phil Blundell]

On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
> philosophy [1]?

No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
anything you like.

p.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>> philosophy [1]?
>
> No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
> anything you like.

The email is not about distributions, but the default value in Yocto
(the distribution generator itself) ...

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Koen Kooi]

Op 29 jan. 2014, om 13:39 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:

> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>>> philosophy [1]?
>> 
>> No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
>> anything you like.
> 
> The email is not about distributions, but the default value in Yocto
> (the distribution generator itself) ...

You mean OE, right? Yocto is 10^-something, the Yocto *Project* is an umbrella project contain lots of things, among which is OE, which can build a distro for you.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Koen Kooi <koen@dominion.thruhere.net> wrote:
>
> Op 29 jan. 2014, om 13:39 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>>>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>>>> philosophy [1]?
>>>
>>> No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
>>> anything you like.
>>
>> The email is not about distributions, but the default value in Yocto
>> (the distribution generator itself) ...
>
> You mean OE, right? Yocto is 10^-something, the Yocto *Project* is an umbrella project contain lots of things, among which is OE, which can build a distro for you.

No, I mean Yocto.

I am not directly concerned about OE as I am not a direct user. I
would like to fix this in Yocto itself. It is fine if it is fixed in
OE proper or worked around in Yocto.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Koen Kooi]

Op 29 jan. 2014, om 16:04 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:

> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Koen Kooi <koen@dominion.thruhere.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Op 29 jan. 2014, om 13:39 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:
>> 
>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>>>>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>>>>> philosophy [1]?
>>>> 
>>>> No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
>>>> anything you like.
>>> 
>>> The email is not about distributions, but the default value in Yocto
>>> (the distribution generator itself) ...
>> 
>> You mean OE, right? Yocto is 10^-something, the Yocto *Project* is an umbrella project contain lots of things, among which is OE, which can build a distro for you.
> 
> No, I mean Yocto.

So 10^-24. I have no idea how to convince the SI that 10^24 needs a home directory switch.

> I am not directly concerned about OE as I am not a direct user. I
> would like to fix this in Yocto itself. It is fine if it is fixed in
> OE proper or worked around in Yocto.

Inconceivable!

I think you are confusing 'Yocto Project' and 'Poky' here. I Please read up on what words mean before using them.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 3:16 PM, Koen Kooi <koen@dominion.thruhere.net> wrote:
>
> Op 29 jan. 2014, om 16:04 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Koen Kooi <koen@dominion.thruhere.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Op 29 jan. 2014, om 13:39 heeft Laszlo Papp <lpapp@kde.org> het volgende geschreven:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Phil Blundell <pb@pbcl.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>>>>>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>>>>>> philosophy [1]?
>>>>>
>>>>> No.  This is distro policy and you (or your DISTRO) can set it to
>>>>> anything you like.
>>>>
>>>> The email is not about distributions, but the default value in Yocto
>>>> (the distribution generator itself) ...
>>>
>>> You mean OE, right? Yocto is 10^-something, the Yocto *Project* is an umbrella project contain lots of things, among which is OE, which can build a distro for you.
>>
>> No, I mean Yocto.
>
> So 10^-24. I have no idea how to convince the SI that 10^24 needs a home directory switch.

I am not sure what you mean, really, but either way: I would prefer
getting back on track.

>> I am not directly concerned about OE as I am not a direct user. I
>> would like to fix this in Yocto itself. It is fine if it is fixed in
>> OE proper or worked around in Yocto.
>
> Inconceivable!
>
> I think you are confusing 'Yocto Project' and 'Poky' here. I Please read up on what words mean before using them.

... or just listen to the user what he is writing... :-) I am a user
of Yocto project. I am reporting issues against Yocto, on the Yocto
issue tracker, etc. Fwiw, I am not even planning to use the "Poky"
distribution...

Either way, I do not wish to continue arguing over these words because
it is not that useful for anyone IMHO.

I would prefer more input about the actual proposal.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Richard Purdie]

On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
> philosophy [1]?
> 
> It is not an unusual that the /home partition is a separate, and the
> sysadmins would like to manage the core system without getting that
> partition mounted, etc.
> 
> It is true that it would be possible to work that around, but /root as
> a default just feels so much more natural on a Unix system.
> 
> What I currently see after talking to a few people, the people keep
> changing it in their layer (distribution) config. It looks sub-optimal
> at first, but perhaps there are still valid reasons to keep this
> around?
> 
> I was told on IRC the first embedded debian may have done it to keep
> rootfs read-only. First, you can remount the root partition on jffs2,
> ubifs, etc... as R/W.
> 
> Even if you could not, you can have a separate /root partition which
> is a good idea anyway to keep the super-user separate from the
> "regular" users. If that is not OK, there is still the option for the
> minority to override it to /home/root if really needed, but I
> personally do not think it should be...
> 
> So, all in all, I am in favor of changing this back to /root to be
> more linux-y and well-separated from the normal users.
> 
> Unfortunately, it would lead to some breakages out there when they
> update Yocto, so it may not be acceptable in this project. I do not
> know the rules. The migration could be aided though with some proper
> documentation.

These directories can be configured by the user extremely easily. By
having a default of /home/root/ we can catch software that has issues
with relocation of that. Having the writeable user data in one directory
like this is useful for several classes of embedded style devices.

So to be honest I don't see a pressing reason to change this.

Cheers,

Richard

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Richard Purdie
<richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is there any obstacle why this cannot be /root as per default Unix
>> philosophy [1]?
>>
>> It is not an unusual that the /home partition is a separate, and the
>> sysadmins would like to manage the core system without getting that
>> partition mounted, etc.
>>
>> It is true that it would be possible to work that around, but /root as
>> a default just feels so much more natural on a Unix system.
>>
>> What I currently see after talking to a few people, the people keep
>> changing it in their layer (distribution) config. It looks sub-optimal
>> at first, but perhaps there are still valid reasons to keep this
>> around?
>>
>> I was told on IRC the first embedded debian may have done it to keep
>> rootfs read-only. First, you can remount the root partition on jffs2,
>> ubifs, etc... as R/W.
>>
>> Even if you could not, you can have a separate /root partition which
>> is a good idea anyway to keep the super-user separate from the
>> "regular" users. If that is not OK, there is still the option for the
>> minority to override it to /home/root if really needed, but I
>> personally do not think it should be...
>>
>> So, all in all, I am in favor of changing this back to /root to be
>> more linux-y and well-separated from the normal users.
>>
>> Unfortunately, it would lead to some breakages out there when they
>> update Yocto, so it may not be acceptable in this project. I do not
>> know the rules. The migration could be aided though with some proper
>> documentation.
>
> These directories can be configured by the user extremely easily.

To be fair, it would be just as extremely easy to configure it to
"/home/root" as the other way around.

> By having a default of /home/root/ we can catch software that has issues
> with relocation of that.

I am not sure what you mean. Could you please elaborate?

> Having the writeable user data in one directory like this is useful for several classes of embedded style devices.

Could you please provide any examples?

I have not seen any use cases myself out there, but after a quick poke
around, other people seem to have similar experiences around me. As
written in my initial email, I do not target "several" use cases. I am
referring to the majority which, as per Unix philosophy, I am somewhat
opinionated that is "/root".

> So to be honest I don't see a pressing reason to change this.

I do, because the earlier it is done, the fewer users that may have
incompatible changes. As the time goes ahead, more and more users will
stick to it as "default". I believe this means those who do not care
about proper Unix separation.

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Richard Purdie]

On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:59 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Richard Purdie
> <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:

> > By having a default of /home/root/ we can catch software that has issues
> > with relocation of that.
> 
> I am not sure what you mean. Could you please elaborate?

As you mention, "/root" is more standard. It therefore becomes hard to
spot software that assumes this rather than using the directory we
configure it to if the default is also /root.

By having a slightly more unusual default choice, we quickly find the
software that doesn't adapt to our variable.

> > Having the writeable user data in one directory like this is useful
> for several classes of embedded style devices.
> 
> Could you please provide any examples?

One that springs to mind is the Sharp Zaurus series of PDAs have
separate /home partitions in flash. You can reflash a new rootfs without
overwriting the user config data.

> > So to be honest I don't see a pressing reason to change this.
> 
> I do, because the earlier it is done, the fewer users that may have
> incompatible changes. As the time goes ahead, more and more users will
> stick to it as "default". I believe this means those who do not care
> about proper Unix separation.

Its been like this for years and seems to work perfectly fine for
people. You can configure it just fine. As I said previously, I see no
pressing reason to change it.

Cheers,

Richard

Re: ROOT_HOME: /home/root

[Laszlo Papp]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Richard Purdie
<richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:59 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Richard Purdie
>> <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> > On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 12:32 +0000, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>
>> > By having a default of /home/root/ we can catch software that has issues
>> > with relocation of that.
>>
>> I am not sure what you mean. Could you please elaborate?
>
> As you mention, "/root" is more standard. It therefore becomes hard to
> spot software that assumes this rather than using the directory we
> configure it to if the default is also /root.
>
> By having a slightly more unusual default choice, we quickly find the
> software that doesn't adapt to our variable.

You seem to be referring to testing rather than forcing a test case
for the software, and hence majority. There are two better
alternatives IMHO to address this:

a) QA team defines such a test case.

b) In addition to a), you would get reports from users who set it to
/home/root if there are issues. Although, I am certainly questioning
that if more than 10-20% was setting it to "/home/root" at all, or
even much less.

Daniel in the CC also wrote an issue on IRC that it could lead to a
non-loginable system if the /home does not get mounted which would
better not be mandatory without setting it explicitly IMHO.

>> > Having the writeable user data in one directory like this is useful
>> for several classes of embedded style devices.
>>
>> Could you please provide any examples?
>
> One that springs to mind is the Sharp Zaurus series of PDAs have
> separate /home partitions in flash. You can reflash a new rootfs without
> overwriting the user config data.

I addressed this issue in my initial email, but I will reiterate this
concern with two solutions:

a) You can do package update rather than reflashing.

b) Even if a) does not work, as written in my initial email, you can
have a /root partition.

Still, the fact that you can only mention one use here, is somewhat
also self-explanatory that it is not the majority.

>> > So to be honest I don't see a pressing reason to change this.
>>
>> I do, because the earlier it is done, the fewer users that may have
>> incompatible changes. As the time goes ahead, more and more users will
>> stick to it as "default". I believe this means those who do not care
>> about proper Unix separation.
>
> Its been like this for years and seems to work perfectly fine for
> people.

I do not see it perfectly fine that if the majority of the people get
the extra work rather than the minority. I saw this several times now
in the history that it was done manually on the end-users side, and
since it is not just me, I thought I would bring this topic up.

I would rather prefer to ease the end users' work wherever it is possible.

> You can configure it just fine. As I said previously, I see no
> pressing reason to change it.

As written before, you could configure the other way around, too. The
question boils down to that: who should configure it on its own?

* The person who tries to follow the unix philosophy and the generic
behavior on most of the Unix systems out there?

* The person who follows some rare use case?

My opinion is the former.