On Monday 29 November 2004 09:31, Ed Wilts wrote: > $ su - > and enter the root password. Log out of root as soon as you're done. I think the idea of su is bad. The default setup with Ubuntu linux is root's account is disabled and has no password. Instead, one creates a user account and sudo is configured to allow this user to run any command and they verify their permission _with their own password._ There are people trying to get access to *x boxes by attempting ssh logins usin a small list of possible account names (root, admin and guest amongst them) in combination with some list of passwords. Surprisingly, ewilts is not in the list of accounts they use, so security is already better:-) So the default setup is that after installation I can perform all administrative actions using the sudo command and _my_ password. My wife and daughter both use my computer and bot need to be able to do some administration; we'll say enable Internet access. I can permit them to use these two commands _and no others:_ /sbin/ifup Westnet /sbin/ifdown Westnet They have to produce their own passwords, not mine. My imaginary son who has a known liking for illicit content has no such privilege. sudo is part of fc and can be configured the same way, but in Ubuntu Linux Gnome also is configured to use sudo and not su. -- Cheers John
