On 3/12/07, Jim Perrin <jperrin at gmail.com> wrote: > On 3/12/07, Alfred von Campe <alfred at 110.net> wrote: > > I was just going to report these myself. Anyway, I am on the final > > step at the moment (the RPM is being built). But I have a couple of > > questions regarding this process of building a custom kernel: > > > > 1. Why is it not a good idea to build a custom kernel > > as root (you have to be root to install it)? > > > Building as root is bad practice for all software. This is mostly to > protect you from bad code. If a cleanup script tries to delete / > instead of just the buildroot, you'll be in a world of hurt by > building as root. By building as a normal/restricted user you reduce > the permissions available to the code, thereby minimizing potential > damage. And that is the critical type of problems (i.e. removing /). Subtler issues can occur also if the build scriptlets install files, or change configs your build system becomes polluted. Cheers...james