How to create a superuser in Kubuntu?

David Kuntadi d.kuntadi at gmail.com
Wed Oct 7 05:41:20 UTC 2009


Fowarding to the list:


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe(theWordy)Philbrook <jtwdyp at ttlc.net>
Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Subject: Re: How to create a superuser in Kubuntu?
To: David Kuntadi <d.kuntadi at gmail.com>



It would appear that on Oct 6, David Kuntadi did say:

> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Ali Milis <almilis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Really?
> > What to do if the system crashes and it asks for
> > root password when booting?
>
> The first user password could do the job, if it is not removed from admin yet.
>
> DK

Pardon me for intruding on this interesting discussion. But David mentioned
something I'm curious about. IE what is the difference (if any) between the
first user account, and any other account that has been added to the Admin
group???

In the above scenario, Does the system crash test for root password on a
Kubuntu system actually verify against ALL fully privileged suduer accounts?
Or does it simply know the user ID # that the installer would have assigned
to the first user???

If it does depend on it being the actual first user, then what other
processes work better for first user than for other Admin users?

Myself, I always found it irritating that the installer assumes the first
user I create is going to be my superuser account. But in fact Any user
account I'm going to ever be using won't be created until I've modified
/etc/skel with changes to an assortment of default set ups, (including
massive changes to the default kde global keyboard shortcuts)

Thus with any Kubuntu system installed to my computer, the first user will
generally:
1) set a real root password. (I'm a big boy, and I like to use the same
  admin methods on ALL my Linux which is usually done via "su -c" and/or
  "su -c mc")
2) modify /etc/sudoers to add targetpw to the defaults flag list. (because
  I believe using the same password that is used to log in for mundane
  tasks to access admin functions is inherently less secure than having a
  root account... {I figure that sooner or later I'll be doing humdrum
  stuff and not notice some shoulder surfer watching me enter my password,
  But if I'm entering a password for ADMIN use, I think more about who
  could be watching. -pointless if it's the same passwd they already
  watched me input when I was logging in to check my mail etc...-})
3) be deleted by root.

Now if there was a way to set up sudoers to use a separate admin password
without having an active root account, Then I might find the added security
of outsiders NOT knowing the login name of the admin account worth putting
up with sudo. OR if a NON-sudoer could:

orduser$ su <sudoer account that's NEVER used for mundane tasks>
passwd: <sudoer account passwd>
sudoer$ sudo bash
passwd: <sudoer account passwd>
sudoer#

Then I might stop bothering with an actual root account.

But unless I'm mistaken, on a Kubuntu system, su only works for sudoers...

Still I'd like to know if there actually is anything special about the first
user account besides it being a sudoer???

--
|  ~^~   ~^~
|  <?>   <?>             Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|      ^                      J(tWdy)P
|    \___/                 <<jtwdyp at ttlc.net>>




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