Paul Schmehl wrote:
--On Thursday, December 16, 2004 11:11:03 AM +0000 Matthew Seaman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On the other hand, I take the view that the less done by the super user the better, and discourage myself to use sudo(1) preferentially and to keep su(1) sessions as short as possible by making root's shell as /unfriendly/ as possible.
Is this a religious argument? Or is there a sound security basis for it?
I ask because I'm not sure I see the difference. I prefer to leave sudo
set up to prompt for a password. This at least reminds you that what
you're doing is "root's" work (and if you screw up, you could do "bad"
things.) If I'm going to do a lot of work, I just su - to root, do the work
and then get out. I don't allow remote root access, so I'm wondering -
am I exposing my systems to some unnecessary risk? Or is this just
a matter of personal preference?
The primary reason, IMHO, for such an opinion is just what you mention --- the danger that, as root, you'll fsck some command line (the infamous "rm -rf /*") and cook your goose in its own grease....
[Come to think of it, I got myself in a little trouble once by quitting the editor on /etc/fstab a little too quickly (before double checking what I'd typed --- can't say it'd been any different using sudo, though)].
In your case, I'd venture the opinion that if you're not using NOPASSWD with sudo, you've pretty much got this concern taken care of, as much as can be expected.
I also think maybe he meant to use "encourage" instead of "discourage", but you'd really have to ask him ....
Kevin Kinsey
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