On 7/19/06, Ambrogio <fn050202@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Il giorno mer, 19/07/2006 alle 12.07 +0200, Trond Danielsen ha scritto: > I am shure others have said this before, and it is not an answer to > you question, but there is _really_ no need to log into X as root. > There are numerous reasons why you should not do this. Use su or sudo > to gain root access as a normal user. I don't want to start a flame, but there are 2 arguments in my mail. First is: why stopped working screensaver. This is a real problem. I don't know if the bug was before or is now :-) Second is: I know that "all" says, don't log as root. And I also say to don't. But I think also that if I say to someone to not log as root, is because I know that HI/SHE is dangerous. And I don't teach to use su or sudo. I think that if I use su or sudo, I become as dangerous as if I'm logged as root. So what is the advantage to become root when needed. I think that if I will asked for root password everytime I start a service (at least 10 times in an hour) or if I asked for password everytime is needed I will become nervous.
Who starts services 10 times an hour??? (Except you :) )
The same for shell (I use it very very often). No. I use everytime the shell. I use it for all things.
If you need a root terminal, why don't you just leave it open?
So I have to issue su - root, give password and work as root. What is the difference? Or I have to configure sudo for my user, that is the same as permit to user all as root. What is the difference?
This is a very basic principle in the security philisophy of Unix like operating systems. If each program and each user only has permissions to do the things that they must do, and not everything else, then that limits the potential damage if a user wants to mess up for other users or a buggy program causes an error. This is one of the reasons why there is a difference between kernel space and user space. The point is not to take away the control from you as the sysadmin, but to provide you as sysadmin with several tools to make your system more secure. But if security and stability are not you goals, then feel free to do what you want :)
And what about upgrade, installing software and so on? I'm working on production server every days, with root password or sudo configured, and never happens something wrong. I'm using linux on my laptops for at least 3 years. I changed 3 laptops, started on fedora core 1 until core 5. Everytime backing up my data, reinstalling OS, and restoring my data, configuring my apps and so on. Everytime as root and without any kind of problems. I don't understand why now I have to not use root. I think Linux is an expression of my freedom using PC. So if I want to use root, I can (whit my own risk, but with full functionality). Why screensaver wont work as root I don't undersand. It is more probably a programmers choice, not a system choise. So now I have to think on how to convert all my scripts, scheduled jobs, services, and apps working as now, but with another user. Desktop, menus, fetchmail, bogofilter, procmail, firefox with bookmark and so on. I'm confident that I will be able to make this conversion but I have to work a lot. Only because screensaver is not working :-) Maybe it's better that everytime I want coffee or cigarette, I will touch on Ctrl-Alt-L ;-) Bye Ambrogio -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
-- Trond Danielsen
