bigbear
Site Admin
Joined: 26 Feb 2011
Posts: 36
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 Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 2:37 am Post subject: Let's talk about the root user |
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In Linux, there is a user account that is the all powerful, possessing all privileges ruler. That is the "root" user.
The root user is very much like the "administrator" user in Windows.
Some Linux distro developers and users are utterly terrified of the root user account and it's capabilities. Distros like Ubuntu and fedora go so far as to turn off or try to change the abilities of the root user to protect the person who is acting as administrator from themselves.
Most distros though just try to encourage the end user to be careful with the root user account and will leave it enabled and un-molested.
The root user, like the Windows 'administrator" is a necessary user account. It holds the keys to the kingdom. what root says is the last word and has immediate results.
As in Windows, you don't want to casually use the computer as the "root" user or with full on root privileges.
Why? you may ask. Well, It's not just about you as the user.when you are logged in as root, everything you do, every app you are running also has root privileges when they might not or explicitly should not be doing so.
the difference between Windows administrator account and Linux root account is that Windows usually creates the users as administrator privileges by default. Not very security minded. It's to provide ease of use at the expense of security. In Linux, There is only one root account created at install and the default is to create all other users as regular accounts. This is somewhat the opposite, providing security at the cost of ease of use.
The changes those apps make in a 'regular" user account affects only that one users settings. With root privileges, it affects the whole computers settings. oops.
Not only that, if there is a certain piece of malware that is downloaded, like a virus or a trojan horse, etc... it runs with the same privileges as the user account it is running in. If it's just a "regular" user account, nothing more than that one users settings are affected. if you are running with root privileges, that malware is also.
Now are you seeing the bigger picture?
The usually accepted advice given is to never ever , unless absolutely necessary, and there are a few occasions where it it necessary, log in as root.
It is usually better to log in as your regular user and use the "su" command to give yourself temporary root-like privileges (even then, not all root privileges are conveyed.) or supply the root password when it is asked for for a very specific, one-time operation.
When you do have to log in as root, complete the task(s) requiring root login and then log out as soon as it is done and log in again as regular user with su as described above for everything else.
IT admins are trained and paid to be paranoid. Security and integrity of the system and network are paramount.Nothing is worth doing , to an admin, that's not worth doing securely.
In other words, protect the system even from yourself. You know those nights when you are working on something late, you're tired, you're behind schedule, someone is trying to talk to you while you're doing something else and ooops1 oh expletive, I didn't mean to do that.
Wait, where's that file go, I just had it onscreen.
and you can imagine how it goes from there.
Don't be afraid of root. Be careful, be cautious, even be paranoid but do not be afraid or jumpy while logged in as root. |
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