Re: [dev] [PATCH] Check for presence of SHELL environment variable

From: koneu <koneu93_AT_googlemail.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2014 20:11:26 +0100

Hi,

Eric Pruitt wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 03, 2014 at 11:33:17AM +0100, k0ga_AT_shike2.com wrote:
> > I would like to listen the opinion of other suckless developers about
> > this point. What do you think guys?
>
> It's been nearly two weeks since I originally submitted this, and I
> don't think anyone else cares. I'm going to repeat myself here, but
> practically every application checks for environment variables before
> passwd. There's no good reason that st shoudln't, too. The only
> exceptions to that that I've ever run into are st and a Windows Java
> application that was ported to Linux.
>
> I did a quick survey of a number of other terminal emulators: tmux,
> xterm, GNU screen, rxvt and dvtm all check the SHELL environment
> variable. Checking SHELL is expected behaviour, and it's a useful one at
> that.
>
> Eric

Checking SHELL is common behaviour and any user setting SHELL will
expect their terminal emulator to use it, rather than the value from
/etc/passwd.
For those worrying about security, /bin/sh prevents setting SHELL in
restricted mode.
Received on Sun Nov 09 2014 - 20:11:26 CET