Root login

[clay weber]

Raphaël Pinson wrote:
> On 12/7/06, *Renaud (Ron) Olgiati* <renaud at olgiati-in-paraguay.org 
> <mailto:renaud at olgiati-in-paraguay.org>> wrote:
>
>     On Thursday 07 December 2006 08:00, my mailbox was graced by a missive
>     from Tez <binary_y2k2 at blueyonder.co.uk
>     <mailto:binary_y2k2 at blueyonder.co.uk>> who wrote:
>
>     > I'm going to skip the whole "why you shouldn't log in as root"
>     part, as
>     > I assume you know all about that,
>
>     This, often heard as a quasi-religious injunction, is crap.
>
>     While loggin in as root has risks, ans should not be done for
>     every day
>     desktop use, there are sysadmin / netadmin tasks that can only be
>     done as
>     root.
>
>     Which is, I suppose, why root was invented in the first place  ;-3)
>
>
>
> While  it is a mere choice (which is not recommended) to use root 
> login instead of sudo on Kubuntu, it is a really bad idea to login as 
> root graphically, which is why login as root is disabled in kdmrc. You 
> can access administrative sections of the settings with sudo on 
> Kubuntu, aswell as login as root in a console if you really want to.
>
> Sysadmin/netadmin tasks don't usually require a graphical interface, 
> and when they do, Kubuntu is set to provide an administrative 
> interface with sudo, so you never need to login as root.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> -- 
>   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Raphaël Pinson - raphink at ichthux.com <mailto:raphink at ichthux.com>
> http://www.raphink.info
> Ichthux - http://www.ichthux.com - Linux for Christians 
I also won't get into the why/why not/how-to, etc. Having happily used 
sudo exclusively since shortly after switching distros to Hoary, I don't 
see any reason for using root on my systems. I am not against it at all, 
but I think for comparison and illustrative purposes it might be a good 
thing for someone to list what they *cannot* do using sudo so users have 
even more information and perhaps those items can be addressed. I 
personally have not yet found anything that needs root in my day to day 
use. A real sysadmin may need/want it and can do so easily, but that 
does not mean sudo is bad. I think sudo was invented to improve and 
enhance control over who can do various tasks from a catchall root 
account, heck sudo and root work together as a sysadmin can grant 
non-root users specific rights without giving them full access to the 
system.

What I truly don't understand is the general reactions I see on this 
subject as I don't see it as an earth-shattering difference between the 
two ways, really.

Clay
http://claydoh.com
http://kubuntuforums.net