[Edgy] Why does the "Users and Group" config utility show a root user?

[Florian Diesch]

"Eamonn Sullivan" <eamonn.sullivan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/5/06, Mario Vukelic <mario.vukelic at dantian.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I did a fresh install of Edgy, using the Alternate Install CD. System >
>> Admin > Users and Groups now shows me a root account with an 8-character
>> password. Is this normal? The root account is in fact disabled as it
>> should:
>>
>> /etc/passwd: root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
>> /etc/shadow: root:!:13456:0:99999:7:::
>>
>
> The root account exists in a default install of Ubuntu (as in any
> Linux), it's just that you can't log in to account directly. You need
> to use sudo. Note the ! character in root's line in /etc/shadow. It
> indicates , as far as I know, that the account doesn't have a valid
> password. 

It's just some string that is not valid result of crypt(3) (the function
used to encrypt the passwords) so no password will ever match.


   Florian
-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>