[TriLUG] to delete root, or not too?

[Tanner Lovelace]

On 11/13/06, jason watts <jsnthegod at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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?

No, because what su - does is not switch to the user named "root"
but rather changes your effective user id to 0.  The user with id
0 is, in effect, root, no matter what it is called.

> 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.

Not just graphically.  The root user on Ubuntu is shut down so it
cannot be logged into graphically or on the command line.  You
can, however, change your effective user id with the sudo command,
which should be enough to do everything you need to do.

So, really, the moral of the story is this: It doesn't matter if there's
a user called root or not (certain assumptions made by some
programs notwithstanding).  The programs that check for
appropriate permissions check for the user id of 0, which
will always exist and cannot be removed. (I.e. even if you don't
have a user with that user id, you can still change your effective
user id using something like sudo.)

Cheers,
Tanner

-- 
Tanner Lovelace
clubjuggler at gmail dot com
http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
(fieldless) In fess two roundels in pale, a billet fesswise and an
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