add superuser to a user

[Fred Roller]

William wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-11-08 at 00:31 -0300, Marcelo Magno T. Sales wrote:
>   
>> Em Domingo 08 Novembro 2009, William escreveu:
>>     
>>> I'm the only one that use my computer I would like to know how to add
>>> super user access to my user so I do not have to run sudo and to
>>>  install software ?
>>>
>>>       
>> That's not a good idea. Running a GUI (and many other softwares) as root 
>> may open security breaches which will make it easier for an attacker to 
>> compromise your system. Also, it makes easier for yourself to 
>> inadvertently / unknowingly run software that can damage your system.
>> So, using sudo is useful to protect your system from yourself, as well 
>> as from others.
>> If you still want to do this anyway, you need to change your user ID to 
>> 0, which is root UID.  Edit /etc/passwd (using sudo) and change the 
>> number right after the second ":" at the line of your user account to 0 
>> (probably it is currently 1000, if this is the user you created while 
>> installing the system).
>> Again, it's not advisable to do this.
>>
>> []'s
>> Marcelo
>>
>>     
> I do not this I will do it then ?
>
>
>   
I agree with the rest in that it is not a good idea but if you need root 
and don't want to leave the vulnerabilities open after your session then 
simply do:

    sudo su -

which will activate root via your user and go away when you log out of 
the terminal.  This does not create root nor does it make a permanent 
change to your user but comes in handy if you are going to do extensive 
root work.

-- 
Fred
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like linux, simple.  If you are fighting it you are doing something wrong."