how to remove root user and go back to sudo-only

[John Stilian]

On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 08:55 -0400, David Williamson wrote:
> I added a root user after initial install, because that's what I'm used
> to.  If I want to kill it and go back to sudo-only with no root, how do
> I do it?
> 
> I can tell you this - don't do it this way!  Don't think you can
> edit /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd, delete the root entries (backing up
> the original shadow and passwd files just in case), and log out and
> back.  sudo and su won't work anymore :-)  <doh!>  Good think I had a
> knoppix disk to make things right.
> 
> So, evidently there normally IS a root user, even though he's not used
> the same way as some of us are used to?  And how would I go back to the
> default ubuntu behaviour?
> 
> TIA -
> 
> david williamson
> 
> 

You can disable the root account with passwd. "passwd -l root" will lock
the root account; "passwd -u root" will unlock the root account if you
change your mind. Or you could just put a "*" in the second field of
the /etc/shadow file.