On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:37:00AM -0500, Jack Chastain wrote: > I am really just learning the Ubuntu ropes, but I wondered about that - > particularly since I actually did su to root when playing around with the > original post: > > jack@Dell-Dimension:~$ cat /etc/passwd > root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash > daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh > > jack@Dell-Dimension:~$ su - > Password: > root@Dell-Dimension:~# pwd > /root > root@Dell-Dimension:~# id > uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) > root@Dell-Dimension:~# > > Now - to be completely forthcoming, in order to do this I initially had to > issue "sudo passwd root" and set the root password, but Ubuntu does appear > to have a root UID. . Am I missing something here?
No, you're not missing something. There is a root account - there more or less has to be. Some things have to run as uid0 - even if you don't call it root. When someone says "ubuntu has no root", they really mean "has no root account you can log into from the factory". You can definitely 'sudo su' and get a root shell. You can also set a root password and it'll act like any other distro. You can argue either way for security on this - more secure, users can't easily run everything as root. Less secure, there's only one password that gets you everything (the users password) instead of having to break both a user and a root password, should someone be so inclined. -m --
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