[ale] Root vs Normal User

[Bob Toxen]

Sudo is a fine way to prevent junior SysAdmins (and less than perfect
senior SysAdmins) from screwing up the system.  One even can create a
script that sudo allows someone to invoke to provide any additional
checks.

One warning though: sudo has had a LOT of security bugs reported against
it.  This means that there is a risk in allowing it on the system and
that one must, at least, keep up-to-date with respect to security patches.

Bob Toxen
bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux/Unix security consulting]
http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security 2/e"]
Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since 1990.

"Microsoft: Unsafe at any clock speed!"
   -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 09:12:57AM -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> Running root does not kill the box.  The person running as root will.

> I used to run as root.  Then I fubared an AIX RS/6000 because I ran tar
> in the root directory.  Being a normal user would have saved me.  We
> were down for 6 hours because of my mistake.  A UNIX box does not assume
> the user is an idiot like Windows.  There are no confirmation dialogs
> for rm, tar, and others.  A UNIX box will do exactly what you tell it to
> do.  This is why you do not need to be root unless you are doing
> administration to the box.  Linespire allowing root would scare me.  If
> I was the support manager there I would be scared that my calls would
> actually increase.  The whole idea of not running as root is not for
> protection from hackers on the outside but for the protection from the
> users on the inside.

> Why is sudo not good enough?  If you need to run some program as root
> then use sudo.  That is what it was designed for.