set up a root password

[Bruce Bales]

On Friday 08 August 2008 02:01:38 Jonas Norlander wrote:
> 2008/8/7 John <john at nosuitsit.com>:
> > On Tuesday 05 August 2008 19:16:46 Jerry Gaiser wrote:
> >> One of the first things *I* do is give root a password.
> >
> > Could someone who uses a root account give an actual example of where it
> > is advantageous in comparision to using sudo?
> > Is it just down to keystrokes or is there another reason.
> >
> > Just out of curiosity, what does sudo stand for? I have always assumed it
> > was from "SuperUser do" but could it be from "Switch User (substitute
> > user) do"
> >
> > John
>
> According to wikipedia it's "Super user do" and su is "Switch user" or
> "Substitute user"
>
> / Jonas
I have run into some situations where sudo doesn't work.  One case is
 trying to look at the result of a mysqlhotcopy.   It's in ~/docs/tmp/class.
The user is mysql -- and you, as an ordinary user, are denied access.  Using 
sudo, the machine cannot find the cd command.   That is where you really need 
to be root.

bruce at blacky:~/docs$ cd /tmp/class
bash: cd: /tmp/class: Permission denied
bruce at blacky:~/docs$ sudo cd /tmp/class
sudo: cd: command not found
bruce at blacky:~/docs$ su
Password:
root at blacky:/home/bruce/docs# cd /tmp/class
root at blacky:/tmp/class# ls -l
total 304
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql  8876 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.frm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql 43856 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.MYD
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql  1024 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.MYI

bruce