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A developer who is build a bespoke system for my company is asking me to set the following symlink, and I'm not sure whether there is any point to this at all, and why the developer can't just change their code.

They want to be able to shutdown the system using /bin/shutdown instead of /sbin/shutdown.

The bespoke system will always run on Mint, so I don't think this is a case where they need to cater for other platforms.

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The /sbin/ folder contains programs normally needed only by administrators, which is why it's not in path for regular users. As for why they can't call the /sbin/shutdown if they are executing their code with appropriate rights, you need to ask them.

I would be very cautious and ask them quite a lot of questions - they are obviously writing code that will be run with superuser rights, so they need to know what they are doing. You don't want to run crappy code with superuser rights.

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Thanks, you are confirming my suspicions in that they seem to be a little lacking in knowledge, unless there really is some amazing reason. I thought I'd ask here first before confronting them, they don't seem to take criticism all that well! – DanH Aug 11 '11 at 10:41
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