[techtalk] Users, groups, admins, roots...

[Brendan Coffey]

Wow, lots of misunderstandings and misinformation, here.

To say that "you cannot duplicate root" is fairly misleading.  I
charge you to create an account, give it uid 0, and start playing
around.  You'll quickly find that you can do anything that root
can do, including all kinds of silliness ("kill -9 -1", "rm -rf
/", etc.), because your real uid is 0.  You are no different from
root since, as has been pointed out, the actual user NAME is merely
for human convenience-- only the UID is actually significant.

Note, however, that this is a _bad_idea_.

UID 0 accounts are bad.  su is good.  sudo is better.

-b

---

> > You cannot duplicate root. You can, however, duplicate some of root's
> > functions using sudo. I've never personally done it, but I know it can
> > be done.
> 
> Hmm, that disagrees with my story. But since I've been out of sysadmin work f
or about 6 months now I may well be in the wrong. If so, sorry for the bad advi
ce.
> 
> Anyone care to give a definitive answer?
> 
> Yours,
> Ian.
> 
> #ifndef  __COMMON_SENSE__ | Ian Phillips
> #include <std_disclaimer> | TIBCO Software Inc.
> #endif                    | www.TIBCO.comÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿíyÈmjY&j)bž	b²Û^rZ–OåŠ{±r±þŠà†ÛiÿÿðÃåŠ{±þŠàþé?™¨¥™©ÿ–+-Šwèþל†Ö¥