If one is faced with the task to set the umask globally for all users and shells, this turns out to be a job of redundancy: every shell uses its own file in /etc, and you end up making changes to 5 files or more (depending on the number of installed shells). What's worse: change the umask and you'll possibly forget one shell or the other, which may cause delays in your user's work, or even break things (yeah, you should not rely on umask; yeah, don't tell me...)
I thus propose to solve this dilemma across all shells in Debian with /etc/umask.conf (or /etc/default/umask), which can be the most simple of simple configuration files, should probably ship in base-files, and look like this: UMASK_ROOT=0077 UMASK_USER=0022 In addition, there is /usr/share/base-files/umask.sh: UMASK_ROOT=0077 UMASK_USER=0022 test -r /etc/umask.conf && . /etc/umask.conf if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then umask $UMASK_ROOT else umask $UMASK_USER fi The /etc/profile-equivalent of every shell Debian ships then sources /usr/share/base-files/umask.sh and the user can change the umask in one single location. So the plan is: 1. gather comments. 2. file a bug against base-files to have the files included. 3. once base-files hits unstable, mass-file bugs against all compatible shells and ask them to use it. 4. rejoice. So, let's start at (1)... -- .''`. martin f. krafft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : :' : proud Debian developer, admin, user, and author `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing a system Invalid/expired PGP subkeys? Use subkeys.pgp.net as keyserver! "with sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. however, this is not necessarily a good idea. it is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead." -- rfc 1925
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