home dir executable (!/bin/sh, chmod+x) shell scripts won't run without "sh <script>"

[Bill Moran]

In response to Mike Jeays <mike.jeays at rogers.com>:

> On January 7, 2008 12:04:39 pm Mike Bristow wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 10:50:47AM -0600, Erik Osterholm wrote:
> > > The '.' notation for the current working directory enables you to add
> > > the current directory you happen to be in as part of your path (thus
> > > making it searched when executing a command), however this has serious
> > > security implciations, so if you think that it's something you really
> > > want to do, you'll have to find out from someone else how to do it.
> >
> > OTOH, having ~/bin in the path has no security implications at all -
> > assuming your scripts are OK, of course.
> 
> I don't see anything especially bad about putting "." as the last item in the 
> PATH on a personal desktop machine.  It is convenient, IMHO worth the risk.  
> If my desktop gets hacked, I have worse problems to worry about than this.

Personally, I recommend creating a ~/bin directory and adding that to your
search path.  You're much less likely to accidentally download a trojan
script into ~/bin than you are to ~, and it serves to keep your stuff
more organized.

-- 
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com