Password question.

[Knapp]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:31 PM, Steven Vollom
<stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Eberhard Roloff wrote:
>> Steven Vollom wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to set a password that allows me to enter my system that is
>>> very secure, however, when I am in the system, I would like to have a
>>> very simple password to enter root, perhaps as small as a couple of
>>> letters.  Is this possible?
>>>
>>> Steven
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> With Linux, genarally anything is possible.;-)
>>
>> While this is possible, I would not advise to implent it. The Ubuntu
>> concept of the first  user i.e. the admin user is that you use a rather
>> secure password to login and then use the same to "su" to root, as needed.
>>
>> You can alter this and there are howtos to separate root to use its own
>> password.
>>
>> It's actually quite simple but I would not advise you to do it since you
>> are already familiar with the "Ubuntu way" of doing things. This is
>> because, when you do it, your system will behave differently afterwards
>> and you will need to treat it differently.
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Eberhard
>>
>>
>>
> Sorry I wasn't paying adequate attention to what you just wrote.  I was
> already thinking of possible reasons for avoiding this.  How does it
> change my system?  What change in behavior would be anticipated?  In my
> situation, is it more insecure?  TIA, friend.
>
> Steven
Your system has a file:
/etc/sudoers

If you add this line to it, then you can change how long you stay
signed into sudo. The default is 5 min. I am sure you have seen how
sudo only asks for a password after you have stopped using it for a
bit. I think this is the right command to make that 300 min (5 hours)
but please wait to make sure someone else agrees with me!

Defaults timestamp_timeout=300





>From sudoers man page:
timestamp_timeout

Number of minutes that can elapse before sudo will ask for a passwd
again. The default is 5. Set this to 0 to always prompt for a
password. If set to a value less than 0 the user's timestamp will
never expire. This can be used to allow users to create or delete
their own timestamps via sudo -v and sudo -k respectively.


-- 
Douglas E Knapp

http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page