Re: need help establishing safety of zsh to sysadmin

[Steven L Baur <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Jose" == Jose Unpingco <unpingco@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Coleman <coleman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Jose> I've been using zsh for over a year now, but it seems that it has
Jose> recently come to the attention of the sysadmin who wants me to stop
Jose> using it on the grounds that "it is not a supported shell" on the
Jose> machines I work on.
Jose> 
Jose> I'm hesistant to give up zsh and all its great functions, which I've
Jose> come to depend upon, so I was hoping some of you could give me some
Jose> specific examples of how zsh has not caused problems for you sysadmins
Jose> out here.
Jose> 
Jose> I need to make a pretty convincing argument if I'm going to keep this
Jose> thing.  Any help appreciated.

Richard> Well, if it makes any difference, I (the previous maintainer)
Richard> and Zoltan (the new maintainer) are both sysadmins.  So we
Richard> have thought about the security of zsh.  I don't think zsh
Richard> poses any more of a security risk than any other shell.

Richard> Also, considering that zsh now uses autoconf, it is trivial
Richard> to build.  So what is there to support?  We (the mailing
Richard> lists) do all the support and maintenance work.

I'm sure I'm not the only System Administrator following these lists
who uses zsh.  I like zsh enough to make it the default shell for
users around here.  I've run zsh as root on a variety of systems,
without a problem.

It's been a more stable program than csh (to name a ``supported''
shell).  And it's plain cruel to take away the zsh TAB completion from
someone.  Typing at a command line is such a bother.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
-- 
steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx baur
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