[TriLUG] to delete root, or not too?

[jason watts]

yes, all this helps... is disabling root a common practice out in the real 
world? it just strikes me as something you wouldent want to do...

also, if root is deleted or disabled, dont you loose part of the 
functionality of su ... the part where you just type su - and you are now 
root, provideing you know the pw?

and from my experience with ubuntu (loaded a vm of it and changed the 
passwords around) there is a root account, just not able to log in 
graphicly.

thanks for all the input, and im not trying to start a flameing war with the 
questions... just the enlightend disscusion to either do it, or pose an 
argument of why not too.

jason


>From: Phillip Rhodes <mindcrime at cpphacker.co.uk>
>Reply-To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list <trilug at trilug.org>
>To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list <trilug at trilug.org>
>Subject: Re: [TriLUG] to delete root, or not too?
>Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:40:08 -0500
>
>jason watts wrote:
>>hello
>>
>>i spent today downloading installing and updateing (851 updates) fedora 
>>core 5. as part of my senior project.
>>
>>after i was done, i was told to add this account, and give him root 
>>privlages. so, i added the user to the group 'root'.  then i was 
>>instructed to google and find out how to delete the root account since i 
>>said i dont think its posible.
>>
>>so, my questions are,
>>
>>1) how do i delete root? can i do it threw the normal way you delete any 
>>user account?
>>
>I was just able to do the following:
>
>[root at mariner ~] useradd -u 0 -o falseroot
>
>[root at mariner ~] logout
>
>[prhodes at mariner ~] su - falseroot
>
>[root at mariner ~] userdel root
>
>[root at mariner ~] logout
>
>[prhodes at mariner ~] su - falseroot
>
>[falseroot at mariner ~] cd /root/
>
>[falseroot at mariner ~] touch foo
>
>[falseroot at mariner ~] su - root
>su: user root does not exist
>
>
>
>So I created a new user which is equivelant to root, deleted root, was able 
>to write
>a file in a dir which requires root permissions, but showed that root no 
>longer
>exists.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>
>TTYL,
>
>Phil
>
>
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