On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 01:33:29AM -0700, Chris Ulrich wrote: > I recently got tired of taking care of my own installation of linux > and decided to install debian. So far, I've been pretty happy with it. > > I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but I've got some questions > right now. > > 1: Is it necessary to have all the dead accounts that come in the > distribution password have /bin/sh as the shell? Some, like nobody > and the qmail daemons, aren't suppose to have a real shell, because > people aren't suppose to be able to log in with those IDs. Ever. I > changed my password file, but it seems odd that they would be there > in the first place.
They all have "*" in the password field by default, which means that they can't login. Sometimes you do need to switch to them (with su), so then they need a shell; as root, you can su to any account without a password, even if it's locked. From memory postgresql requires you to do all database admin work from its special account, not root, so you'd su to root, then "su - postgres" again. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5 CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome. http://hamish.home.ml.org -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null