The GNU/Linux thread

:lol:

We need a :sarcasm: emoticon.
 
Dr_Grip said:
Well, it's not exactly rocket science to re-gain root on ubuntu. I just find it disturbing they took it away first place.
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Don't really see what's so disturbing about it, other distros have followed suit, most of the tiem you don't need to run as root anyway and most things can be done using SU w/o much trouble. I see nothing wrong with making root access be something that is not easily accessible.

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Redliner said:
:lol:

We need a :sarcasm: emoticon.
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Actually I thought it was your signature for some reason, I edited the post now cuz I got you were being sarcastic halfway through :p
 
prizrak said:
Don't really see what's so disturbing about it, other distros have followed suit, most of the tiem you don't need to run as root anyway and most things can be done using SU w/o much trouble. I see nothing wrong with making root access be something that is not easily accessible.
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Quite simple: There are few situations where you need a real root account. Most of them have to do with some kind of problem with your user account. Take my little stupid moment yesterday: I could not do sudo bash or sudo su cause both would have meant my user would have stayed logged in, preventing me from unmounting /home. Making the user jump through the sudo so/passwd loophole to gain "real" root access means extra work without any added security/operational safety.
 
Dr_Grip said:
Quite simple: There are few situations where you need a real root account. Most of them have to do with some kind of problem with your user account. Take my little stupid moment yesterday: I could not do sudo bash or sudo su cause both would have meant my user would have stayed logged in, preventing me from unmounting /home. Making the user jump through the sudo so/passwd loophole to gain "real" root access means extra work without any added security/operational safety.
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Actually it makes operational sense, if you are talking production type environments then sudo allows you to have a number of people have "root" access to the machines w/o having to give out real root to anyone. That means that you can always trace what user did what and when as opposed to having a bunch of "root" logins and then having to trace IPs to the specific workstations*.

*At my old job we had a bunch of UNIX servers that we administered by remote and would always log in as root, we had to use an X terminal (as in a hardware dumb terminal that would connect to the terminal server) that had a program for SSHing into servers and would keep track of who is logging on and at what time.

In the "home" type environment (what Ubunut was really meant for) it doesn't really matter too much as the user is generally the admin for the machine and it's trivial to get root back on the off chance it is needed, which is very very rare and only if something is seriously messed up.

Also unless you actually log in as root you would have to SU to root anyways which I don't see as any easier/faster than sudo su.
 
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I use sudo for everyday maintenance tasks as well, I would never doubt it's merits. In fact, for the very reasons you mentioned, it should be standard procedure to use sudo especially when more than one person has/needs root access and/or in remote access applications.

Never the less, both in a production and in a home environment, there are tasks that require root access, with no users logged in. The most obvious example is maintenance to the filesystem/disk/network share /home is on. Thus, logging in as root on the console should be available as a option of last resort.
In ubuntu, the only way to achieve this is to switch to/boot into runlevel 1, which is more complicated (and less powerful, given that you only got one text console) than simply logging out all non-root users.

EDIT: Wait, you still need a password to log in as root in runlevel 1. The only way in ubuntu to get a system without any user logged in except root is to reset the password for root and login as root.
 
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Dr_Grip said:
EDIT: Wait, you still need a password to log in as root in runlevel 1. The only way in ubuntu to get a system without any user logged in except root is to reset the password for root and login as root.
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All you need to do is run
Code: 
 sudo passwd root
and you can have root account back. No need to go to runlevel 1.

I really think the reason they disabled it by default is because Ubuntu is a home system rather than something meant for business usage.

The UNIX systems I have here in the office all have remote root disabled so it's always logging on as another user first and then switching to root.
 
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prizrak said:
Code: 
 sudo passwd root
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Will that work? I think it will still ask you for the old root password - you'll have to do sudo su, then passwd.
prizrak said:
The UNIX systems I have here in the office all have remote root disabled so it's always logging on as another user first and then switching to root.
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Everything else would be horribly insecure, no need to argue about that. I am talking about console access.
 
Dr_Grip said:
Will that work? I think it will still ask you for the old root password - you'll have to do sudo su, then passwd.
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https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/serverguide/user-management.html

Ubuntu help docs said:
If for some reason you wish to enable the root account, simply give it a password:

Code: 
sudo passwd

Sudo will prompt you for your password, and then ask you to supply a new password for root as shown below:

Code: 
[sudo] password for username: (enter your own password)
Enter new UNIX password: (enter a new password for root)
Retype new UNIX password: (repeat new password for root)
passwd: password updated successfully
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That's dead easy. I think you can stop complaining now.
 
chaos386 said:
That's dead easy. I think you can stop complaining now.
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I always said it's "not exactly rocket science". Which is the same as "dead easy". It was a stupid joke in my "I am too stupid for rm" rant. And after that, all I ever wanted to say is that I think it makes no sense to turn if off first place. I never complained ;)

Additionally, I did not want to step onto anybody's toes, I don't know why I deserve that harsh tone...
 
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Dr_Grip said:
Additionally, I did not want to step onto anybody's toes, I don't know why I deserve that harsh tone...
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I know it likely wasn't directed at me but just the same I just want to say that I didn't mean to be harsh in any way, was just having a friendly discussion :)

On the subj I guess it's just the kind of decisions one makes when building an OS, especially one that tries to straddle the line between ease of use of OS X/Windows and power of Linux. My only guess would be they didn't want people accidentally logging in as root or just try to encourage the right way to use an OS. Back when I first started with Linux there was no sudo and I often ended up just running under root all the time (was a Windows convert)
 
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prizrak said:
I know it likely wasn't directed at me but just the same I just want to say that I didn't mean to be harsh in any way, was just having a friendly discussion :)
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That's how I saw it, as well. And in the end we more or less agreed on almost everything anyways...
 
Dr_Grip said:
all I ever wanted to say is that I think it makes no sense to turn if off first place.
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If you're honestly curious about this, the root account isn't turned off or disabled in Ubuntu; it's given a random password. How does your distro do it? The only other options I can think of would be to give it a default password (which is bad for obvious reasons), or to prompt for two sets of passwords during installation, one for root and one for the main user (which is just as much work as doing 'sudo passwd' later, so I don't know how that's any better, especially since 99% of users don't need a root account).

Dr_Grip said:
Additionally, I did not want to step onto anybody's toes, I don't know why I deserve that harsh tone...
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You think I was harsh? You should look at how advice is given in the NSFW section of the forums! :lol:
 
chaos386 said:
If you're honestly curious about this, the root account isn't turned off or disabled in Ubuntu; it's given a random password. How does your distro do it? The only other options I can think of would be to give it a default password (which is bad for obvious reasons), or to prompt for two sets of passwords during installation, one for root and one for the main user (which is just as much work as doing 'sudo passwd' later, so I don't know how that's any better, especially since 99% of users don't need a root account).
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I'm using debian, thus I am asked for two passwords during setup. My only quarrel with the ubuntu way is that it may lead to a situation where a person could really use root (cause, maybe, he has shot his /home/ directory tree and does not want to or can not login) but is locked out cause he forgot to unlock earlier.
Of course, that problem can be solved with a live CD... but anyways.
 
The interesting thing is that I have less problems in daily use with my more or less wrecked/over-customized/in dire need of a reinstall debian unstable than my girlfriend has with her bone stock ubuntu. For example, the File -> Export dialogue in LibreOffice does only turn up after every third or so reboot on her system...

Given that less than 10% of the system are changed between debian and ubuntu, it's astonishing how different they turn out...
 
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Dr_Grip said:
The interesting thing is that I have less problems in daily use with my more or less wrecked/over-customized/in dire need of a reinstall debian unstable than my girlfriend has with her bone stock ubuntu. For example, the File -> Export dialogue in LibreOffice does only turn up after every third or so reboot on her system...

Given that less than 10% of the system are changed between debian and ubuntu, it's astonishing how different they turn out...
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Oh mine's server duty only so haven't had much issue.
 
started using cygwin because lftp is the shit and every other GUI ftp program I've tried on both mac and windows is garbage.
 
prizrak said:
No love for FileZilla?
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Not when I can't have segmented downloads. FileZilla is great for small files, but not for large stuff.
 
Never heard of segmented downloads, tho I have done large (over a gig) files with FZ w/o much issue.
 
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