[TriLUG] to delete root, or not too?

[Chris Bullock]

I believe this is not "common practice" in the Linux/Unix workplace. 
Where your TA may be coming from is that in a Microsoft Windows world it
is common practice to delete or more appropriately, rename the
Administrator account. The general consensus is that if you know a
username you know half of the login credentials, if you ever have a
firewall, just look at the logs and see how many attempts you have for
user root to try to log in on a daily basis.
cgb

--- jason watts <jsnthegod at hotmail.com> wrote:

> yes, all this helps... is disabling root a common practice out in the
> real 
> world? it just strikes me as something you wouldent want to do...
> 
> also, if root is deleted or disabled, dont you loose part of the 
> functionality of su ... the part where you just type su - and you are
> now 
> root, provideing you know the pw?
> 
> and from my experience with ubuntu (loaded a vm of it and changed the 
> passwords around) there is a root account, just not able to log in 
> graphicly.
> 
> thanks for all the input, and im not trying to start a flameing war with
> the 
> questions... just the enlightend disscusion to either do it, or pose an 
> argument of why not too.
> 
> jason
> 
> 
> >From: Phillip Rhodes <mindcrime at cpphacker.co.uk>
> >Reply-To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> <trilug at trilug.org>
> >To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list <trilug at trilug.org>
> >Subject: Re: [TriLUG] to delete root, or not too?
> >Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:40:08 -0500
> >
> >jason watts wrote:
> >>hello
> >>
> >>i spent today downloading installing and updateing (851 updates)
> fedora 
> >>core 5. as part of my senior project.
> >>
> >>after i was done, i was told to add this account, and give him root 
> >>privlages. so, i added the user to the group 'root'.  then i was 
> >>instructed to google and find out how to delete the root account since
> i 
> >>said i dont think its posible.
> >>
> >>so, my questions are,
> >>
> >>1) how do i delete root? can i do it threw the normal way you delete
> any 
> >>user account?
> >>
> >I was just able to do the following:
> >
> >[root at mariner ~] useradd -u 0 -o falseroot
> >
> >[root at mariner ~] logout
> >
> >[prhodes at mariner ~] su - falseroot
> >
> >[root at mariner ~] userdel root
> >
> >[root at mariner ~] logout
> >
> >[prhodes at mariner ~] su - falseroot
> >
> >[falseroot at mariner ~] cd /root/
> >
> >[falseroot at mariner ~] touch foo
> >
> >[falseroot at mariner ~] su - root
> >su: user root does not exist
> >
> >
> >
> >So I created a new user which is equivelant to root, deleted root, was
> able 
> >to write
> >a file in a dir which requires root permissions, but showed that root
> no 
> >longer
> >exists.
> >
> >Hope this helps.
> >
> >
> >TTYL,
> >
> >Phil
> >
> >
> >--
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