that darned ROOT problem

[Matan Nassau]

On 9/28/05, Mario Vukelic <mario.vukelic at dantian.org> wrote:
> If someone tries to su to a non-existant account, su complains:
>
> mario at phonic: / $ su doesnt_exist
> Unknown id: doesnt_exist
> mario at phonic: / $
>
> If someone tries to su to root when it is disabled, it could well say
> "root account disabled. See /usr/share/doc/<somepackage>/README for
> info", at least the first time it is run by a user.

This is not the same. root does exist, and will never cease to exist.
As much as I understand the mechanism of sudo, sudo is merely a
running automatic third-party between users and root, and it knows who
is priviledged and who's not, to forward requests to root.

All Ubuntu did was to DISABLE root, not delete it (you can't, correct
me if I'm wrong). They just edit the passwd file so that any password
you enter to become root will fail. root is still there as much as su,
or the system for this matter, are concerned. You can, however, wrap
su with some crafted script (or worse yet change the su code) but you
then start doing things the Wrong Way(tm), because you farther make
the users get used to Non-Standard(tm) things -- only this time for no
justified reason.

--
MN