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Root as Primary Login: Why Not?
A user writes, "I help moderate a forum dealing with Mac OS X, and I'm having an awful time convincing a fair portion of our readers that logging in as root all the time is a Really Bad Idea. Worse, though, are the ones who try to convince others to log in as root all the time, claiming it's 'more Mac-OS-9-like,' or saying 'it's not really more insecure,' or even that 'a firewall should deter hackers pretty well.' I know all the standard arguments, but they're not working out. Does anyone here have some real-world anecdotes that I can point to?"
If it needs root access to devices, which it almost certainly does to ifconfig an interface up, it should be installed suid root (if safe). Also, sudo is a great utility for doing things as root, does it come installed by default?
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
Well, you could have a script run at boot time to connect the adsl, or one that is set to run as root no matter who runs it.
/
As for the original poster, I don't know what to say. In OS X root still has to give his password for authentication screens. The only convenience I can really see it having is to mess around with system libraries and configuration files unchecked. Oh yeah, thats right. Most unices aren't very vulnerable to virii because the user isn't root, so the virus can't get at the important things. The most a trojan could do is take out your home directory. Your system would still run.
Of course, logging in as root makes the system slightly more vulnerable to local attacks, but that isn't saying much.
Cmd-S during boot-up.
fsck -y
mount
SystemStarter
passwd root
System compromised.
But thats a feature. I think it can be disabled, possibly by supplying an OpenFirmware password... auto-logging in as root sort of ruins that, though.
If people want security similar to Windows, tell them to run as root. OS9 is somewhat more "secure" than OSX because it was meant to be stupid-proof. Running as root in OSX is like telling the computer you really know what you're doing. If you don't, you shouldn't.
My main reason for why you don't use root entirely is eventually no matter how careful you are you WILL make a mistake. Be it rm, chmod, mv, it will happen. If you use another account and try to do as much as you can as a none root user and only su up you will be less likely to simply careless do something.
But that is my 2 cents, my advice would be to present your argument, if they don't want to listen and want to put their boxes at risk, let them. When they accidentally make a mistake bring their system down they will learn. If they don't learn from that and keep recommending bad admin practices to others, well they are morons. But that is another issue.
Also, sudo is a great utility for doing things as root, does it come installed by default?
Yup, sure does. As far as I know, it's been there since forever. At least since 10.0.3, which was the earliest version that I used regularly.
There are a lot of threads at various mac forums with this topic, but a current one is here at MacNN forums.
MacNN forums seems to have a well deserved reputation for being full of idiots. Especially in the OS X threads.
Say hello to "Bobby" from Ventura California, who started this thread :)
Let's say that you want to change the permissions of all the files in your home directory to go-rwx (which make sense). So, you type:
/*
/bin, /sbin, /var, etc. You're system is now screwed up to the point where it's probably faster to reinstall than change all the permissions. If you weren't root, you'd see something like this (from a Linux-PPC box):
/* /bin: Operation not permitted /boot: Operation not permitted /dev: Operation not permitted /etc: Operation not permitted /home: Operation not permitted /lib: Operation not permitted /lost+found: Operation not permitted /mnt: Operation not permitted /opt: Operation not permitted /proc: Operation not permitted /root: Operation not permitted /sbin: Operation not permitted /tmp: Operation not permitted /usr: Operation not permitted /var: Operation not permitted
:)
chmod go-rwx ~/*
But by mistake, you hit the space bar, and get:
chmod go-rwx ~
By the time you realize the hard disk has churned too long, you'd just gone and wiped the permissions on
[pts/2@tardis:/home/dmorriso @00:45] chmod go-rwx ~
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
chmod:
[pts/2@tardis:/home/dmorriso @00:46]
And yes, back in the day, I did make this oops and had to reinstall, because I had used su rather than sudo, and had forgotten to un-su. I started using sudo right afterwards.
_sig_ is away
At install there is no root user created. So by default you cannot log in as root from the gui or via su. sudo is available however to users who are set as "admin".
You can enable root through the netinfo config utility. It asks for a new root password.
As a command-line user, I understand the value of not logging in as root all the time.
However, most Mac users couldn't use a command line if their life depended on it and probably don't even know that MacOSX has a command line.
The MacOSX user who's a classic mac user will probably never use the command line; if they have to rename a thousand files to add an extension or a prefix or whatever, they'll do it by hand, not by using a tcsh script.
So, the question is, how much damage can one do from the MacOSX GUI at root? I don't know. I have accounts on other ppl's MacOSX computer (namely, at my University) but have never been logged in as root.
Of course, not logging in as root doesn't only protect you from yourself. It also protects you from "trogan" install programs, which say they'll do one thing, and in fact delete the entire hard drive or something else like that.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
At install there is no root user created. So by default you cannot log in as root from the gui or via su. sudo is available however to users who are set as "admin".
You can enable root through the netinfo config utility. It asks for a new root password.
Partially correct. root is created on install just like any other Unix, and is the owner of most files on the system initially. Just who knows what the password is. Netinfo lets you set a different password, but all it is is a pretty GUI for "sudo su; passwd root".
OS X, like most unices, doesn't honor the set-uid bit for scripts.
I would just write a trivial C program and make that set-uid:
On OS X, install dev tools, compile as "cc file.c -o my-script" and then "chmod 4755 my-script". You can then run it from a normal user shell and the script is run as root (make sure the file is owned by root).
NB: I'm not replying directly to you, but rather to the original poster who wanted to know how to do this.
Nobody has yet replied to this point (subtle, this is easy to miss unless you've worked with people).
This is because adsl-connect is probably not in your PATH (I'm guessing it's in /sbin or /usr/sbin). You can do a 'man bash', hit the '/' key, type in PATH and keep typing 'n' until you find the entry in the manual page explaining how PATH works.
Short story: type in the following:
Make sure to type in the dash in the 'su' command. The second command should tell you exactly where adsl-connect is, and you can go from there.You don't see anyone trying to eradicate the usage of "boxen" (even though "boxes" is the proper plural of "box").
There are two big differences between "boxen" and "virii."
First of all, "boxen" is almost always tongue-in-cheek. It's an old joke, but it's just a joke.
Secondly, "boxen" would be correct, if it weren't for the simple fact that it isn't. It's just one of those quirks of the language: one box plus one box is boxes, and one fox plus one fox is foxes, but one ox plus one ox is oxen. Like a friend of mine said, about fifteen years ago, in my high school English class. "Drive, drove, have driven. Dive, dove, have diven?" "Boxen" is funny because its use points out the arbitrary and inconsistent nature of English pluralization.
As I said, though, "virii" isn't just technically wrong, it's completely wrong. Latin had either no plural at all for "virus," or only a very rarely used and easily confused plural, depending on whose interpretation you accept. "Virii" has zero basis in any kind of fact.
If the correct Latin plural of "virus" had been "virii," and if the use were intended to be sarcastic or humorous, I wouldn't mind so much. But the fact is, people often use "virii" in utter seriousness, as if it were correct and acceptable.
It isn't. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.
In my analysis, there are three reasons.
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Nope.. You're logging in as an admin user - which is perfectly fine IMHO and much safer than running as root.
Sudo lets you run commands as root without actually running your shell or whatnot under root - when the program is finished, so is your root access and you can't foof the system by accidentally doing rm -Rf / or something.
Those who will sacrifice Freedom and Security will get Windows...
I don't get it. Why do people feel the need to be root anyway? I have been an OS X user since Beta. I host my website on OS X and recently OS X server. I have configured Apache, BIND, Sendmail (ugh) and Postfix. I compile C++ source from the command line. If for some reason need to run a command as root (which can be frequent) i use sudo. There is a program called pseudo that will run apps as if they are root by drag/drop-ing files on top of it. If the user is an admin, they can config the system and install by simply providing their passwd. I have activated root from NetInfo to access certain functions but never once needed to log in as root. What is all the fuss is about?
z(p)