From: pharrington Date: 2009-05-24T01:10:05+09:00 Subject: Re: Can't start webrick as the root user On May 23, 11:41 am, Mk 27 wrote: > pharrington wrote: > > On May 23, 10:28 am, Pra Bhandar wrote: > > More importantly, why does your app need to run as root? Running as > > root and connecting to the internet is the most reliable way to ensure > > you get compromised. If there are certain resources that *absolutely* > > require root to obtain, then obtain them as early as possible > > (definitely before starting the WEBrick server), then setuid down to a > > saner user. > > If you are just doing some development work on a non-server box you > would have to be insane to believe this is a security risk.  I usually > program as root, it is much more convenient.  I've never run WEBrick as > anything *but* root. > > It's not clear from the OP whether it works as some other user altho > that seems to be implied. > -- > Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/. If the WEBrick server is only listening on localhost than yes, that's not going to impose any security risk (and since he's not specifying the the IP... I probably did overreact). Still, the fact that he's specifically trying to have this running as root when it works as other users implies a reason. And is programming as root really that much more convenient than having to type "sudo" every once-in-a-while to restart apache or install gems?