what is root actually means?

[Greg Booth]

All good, I got it from someone on this list not long ago or I
wouldn't have known how to do it either.

I had an "argument" sorta with some of the guys on here vs. setting a
root password and using sudo. They converted me so I switched back to
sudo -i instead of just using su and a root password.

Greg

On 6/27/07, Earl Violet <ejviolet at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Greg Booth <bootgr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > I've been told to re-lock the root account you do sudo passwd -l
> > root
> >
> > here's what man has to say about passwd -l ( lower case L )
> >
> > man passwd
> >        -l, --lock
> >           Lock the named account. This option disables an account
> > by changing
> >           the password to a value which matches no possible
> > encrypted value.
> >
> > so the account is actually locked, no way to log into it, BUT you
> > can
> > still become root using sudo -i and here's what man says about
> > using
> > sudo -i
> >
> >        -i  The -i (simulate initial login) option runs the shell
> > specified in
> >            the passwd(5) entry of the user that the command is
> > being run as.
> >            The command name argument given to the shell begins with
> > a - to
> >            tell the shell to run as a login shell.  sudo attempts
> > to change to
> >            that users home directory before running the shell.  It
> > also initializes
> >            the environment, leaving TERM unchanged, setting HOME,
> >            SHELL, USER, LOGNAME, and PATH, and unsetting all other
> > environment
> >            variables.  Note that because the shell to use is
> > determined before
> >            the sudoers file is parsed, a runas_default setting in
> > sudoers will
> >            specify the user to run the shell as but will not affect
> > which
> >            shell is actually run.
> >
> > Greg
>
> thank you Greg,
>
> I have been following the sudo vs. root discussion for a while now.
> I originally enabled root and was just going to ask how to back out
> of it.
>
> Earl
>
>
> URL http://deserthowler.cjb.net
> Instant messenger: earlcoyote
> ICQ:64033496
>
>
>
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