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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.
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.
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
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.
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.