[GLLUG] root access

Melson, Paul PMelson@sequoianet.com
Thu, 11 Apr 2002 08:28:17 -0400


Personally, I would avoid this practice if at all possible.  By creating
a second '0:0' entry in /etc/passwd, you're not creating a second user
with administrator rights, you're just creating another login/password
pair for the root user.  Run `whoami` from a command line when logged in
w/ this new user to see what I mean.  *IX users and groups are based
almost solely on uid/gid membership, and this paradigm assumes that all
users have unique uid's.  Linux will record a root login for each of
these users, and files & directories created by these users will be
owned by root.

I agree with Ben and Daniel on this.  Using a utility like `sudo`
(standard w/ most RedHat installs) is a much better way to manage access
to root privileges for multiple users.  Minimally, use `su` from
individual accounts (w/ unique uid's) so that there is at least a log of
who assumed root privileges and when in syslog.

PaulM

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam McDougall [mailto:mcdouga9@egr.msu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 9:42 PM
To: Matt Fuerst
Cc: linux-user@egr.msu.edu
Subject: Re: [GLLUG] root access


You need to make the UID 0, not GID.  You probably need to edit
the password file (properly) to do this.