I have to disagree with "sudo su - is stupid."
If it serves a purpose (as it does for me and others I work with) then I don't see it as being stupid.
Can I use "su -", sure I can but then I have to remember roots password (do I know it yes, am I allowed to work as root, yes) but I
almost always start working as my regular user and it's far easier and quicker for me to do "sudo su -" (and enter my password) then
it is to use "su -" ( and try to hunt down the root password, we probably have hundreds of different root passwords depending on
which system it is and who admins it ).
I regularly change my password and that password makes sense to me. With multiple admins all choosing their own root passwords and
frequently changing them (to things that make sense to them but not necessarily me) I find it more useful to use "sudo su -".
This also helps when the admin recently changes roots password and forgets it or had caps lock on or some other goofy thing (I know,
this never happens to admins ;-)). If sudo su - (using a user password was not allowed) then you'd have to undoubtedly bring the
system down and reset the root password. It also helps when for instance you have to do something like fdisk where sudo fdisk will
normally get "sudo: fdisk: command not found" and you have to use sudo /sbin/fdisk.
I suppose if "sudo su -" asks for roots password ("Defaults targetpw" in sudoers for instance ) like opensuse seems to do, I might
consider that stupid but it probably is there for a reason and someone finds it useful.
Just my $0.02.
-Tomas
On 10/19/2010 08:28 AM, Tsvetomir Totev wrote:
> Hmm, I think
>
> $ sudo -i
>
> and your account password will give you root access on Ubuntu. On Debian
> sudo is not allowed by default.
>
> $ sudo su -
>
> is stupid.
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Craig White <craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2010-10-18 at 10:05 -0600, Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
> > When I need root access, I used to use sudo su -. Recently, I
> discovered I
> > could simply type su -.
> >
> > What's the difference:
> >
> > su -
> > sudo su -
> >
> ----
> I can't imagine why any UNIX/Linux system would allow a 'sudo su'
> command.
>
> su -
>
> is just a whole lot less typing
>
> sudo su -
>
> can be a security nightmare
>
> however on Debian/Ubuntu systems where there is generally no 'superuser'
> login allowed, you would have to 'sudo su -' to obtain a continuous
> superuser shell.
>
> Craig
>
>
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> Tsvetomir Totev
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