On Apr 6, 2005 4:12 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 14:21, Scot L. Harris wrote: > > > > > > Giving root password to a user is not wise. My question is why can't > > > we give change GID to 0 or some thingelse and grant any aceess to > > > somebody else, let's say, a part-time administrator?? So that he can > > > update the system, look in /lost+found ...etc. > > > > Granting even partial privileges problematic. You must trust the user > > you are giving that ability to. Allowing someone to update the system > > and access pretty much anything on the system via any means is the same > > as giving them root password. > > > > If you are trying to provide limited admin access the proper way is what > > has been suggested, use sudo to provide the limited access. > > > > If you want to allow someone to do pretty much anything then they should > > be allowed to use su - to get root access. If you don't trust them with > > that then I would not trust them to update the system. > > > > Not giving out root access but allowing them to do anything on the > > system that requires root access does not make much sense. > > Realistically, someone who had to ask that question in the first place > is not going to be able to configure sudo to the extent needed to > allow a useful set of operations but prevent unauthorized operations. > That's probably not even possible - for example you might want an > operator to be able to change all passwords except for root. > So, you might as well admit that you have to trust the person doing > the administration. If you don't, I'd consider webmin as a better > starting place than sudo. > > -- > Les Mikesell > les@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > -- So if this is the case, I would like to pose a question from my original assumption. What is the purpose of having a GID for root? >From the above discussion, what I understand is that, even if you modify /etc/sudoers (say, give a user admin access by adding (ALL) ALL ), the system is not going to give *ALL* admin access to that user. So in that case, I truely do not understand of having a UID for root.
