Got Root - Should You Use It?

vegthura asks: "I have several coworkers that insist that logging into servers is an acceptable practice. They claim it's just easier than using sudo and it's just as safe - you know you're root so what else do you need? And why bother logging in as you if you're just going to use sudo to run commands with root privileges anyway? Everything I've ever read has been the exact opposite philosophy. There is very little you need to be root to do, if anything in practice, and using sudo lets you only use the power of root for when you really need it. So, die hard unix geeks, you've got root... do you use it or stick to sudo?"

Comments

Sudo wins for me

[Smitedogg]

Using sudo, you can allow 'some' root commands to other users/admins without opening up the vault, and you can do a lot of smart things like keep root unable to be logged into, or have a true strong password that you can lock in a safe somewhere, all without losing functionality.

More than just root

[Sentry21]

Using sudo provides a host of benefits besides giving you root. Sudo allows you to grant access to specific users for specific commands, and then revoke those commands later. Compare this with giving the root password to everyone, which requires the password to be changed whenever someone leaves the company (or someone's root privs are revoked).

I can grant access via sudo to users for specific commands, without giving them complete administrative access to the entire system.

When I'm using 'sudo' to do things, my environment stays the same. This means that my $PATH variable stays the same, and so does my prompt. It means that any time I say ~ it refers to /home/myusername and not /root, meaning I can get to it later.

When I'm not using sudo and I do 'cd /var/www/certs/domainname/' and it doesn't give me an error, I know that the permissions are wrong on that directory (more of a reminder than anything). I've gotten so used to this on most systems that the series of commands I use to access the IMAP virtualhost directory is essentially 'cd /var/spool/postfix/virtual; sudo bash; cd /var/spool/postfix/virtual', which slows me down surprisingly not much.

It doesn't take much to hit the up arrow, Ctrl-A, type 'sudo ' and then hit enter if you find you need to.

I can set in ~/.bash_profile that I want rm to use -i by default (alias rm='rm -i') for safety, which carries over into my 'sudo' environment; doing this for root by default can cause e.g. cronjobs to hang, waiting for input that will never come.

The benefits of sudo are not limited to 'gaining root' - they are multitudinous, and apparently your coworkers have never considered versatility to be a benefit; nor, for that matter, have they done likewise for security. Perhaps they should be educated.

Sudo

[doon]

I even use sudo on my *nix boxes @ home. I am a firm believer in sudo. mainly since if I do something stupid with it, I have a log of what it was. We also use sudo at work on all of our boxes(40+), to me it just makes it easier, and makes for one less password to remember. ALso the majority of tasks that I need to do, I can do as myself, there are some tasks, such as restarting services,etc that I need root to be able to do, so as opposed to su'ing over to root, (we don't allow root logins), it is just as easy to sudo the command. Once we get around to hiring a Jr admin, we will use sudo to limit what they can access.

I stick to sudo

[gzearfoss]

I personally stick to sudo. The main reason why is to protect me from myself, more than anyone. Because I have to prefix the command with sudo, it serves as a 'mental brake' to slow down my typing, and double check what I type before I run it.

Re:I stick to sudo

[Tragek]

See; in theory, its a great idea. But by the same principle that some nerds start typing digg when they mean dig, and del.icio.us when they meant delicious, I manage for the most part to disable the mental brake that stops me from using sudo wishywashily. I type sudo rm -r * with the same ease that I type rm -r. My hands muscle memory once started is faster than my brain. I guess I just have to trust that my initial aim is true.

It depends...

[D'Arque Bishop]

For me, it all depends on whether or not the machine is one I directly own or control.

If it is one I personally own or am more or less directly responsible for above anyone else, then I use root if needed.

If it's one that I don't personally own or I'm reporting to someone else who's ultimately responsible for the machine, I don't ask for the root password and request sudo access instead. That way, there's a log of my actions so I can go back and show exactly what I was and wasn't responsible for doing. Showing accountability is key when you're in a position of trust, IMHO.

Just my $.02...

Ask slashdot;

[jericho4.0]

My brother insists it's safe to turn off a computer by pouring beer on the power supply. Everything I've ever read has been the exact opposite philosophy. Who is right?

Re:Ask slashdot;

[EZLeeAmused]

Your brother is right. It is safe and effective to turn off a computer by pouring beer on the power supply. But it only works once. And after it does, you really wish you still had that beer.

It's all about logging

[forsetti]

Given rich ACLs, there is really very little that needs to be done as root. However, when root is needed, it is important to remember that there is only one root. On a machine with multiple admins, how do you tell who logged in as root? The sudo log entry tells all:

Apr 15 22:05:41 linux-black sudo: matt : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/matt ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/tail /var/log/auth.log

sudo is valuable if only for the logging. Yes, you can limit what can be done using the sudoers file, but logging who did what is invaluable.

Got Root - Need Root

[Ajehals]

(Disclaimer, its 3 am, I've just given up doing a code audit on the basis that I am too tired, so if this doesn't make sense, I am sorry, oh and don't take my advice or even think about relying it the following statement is as is, and comes with no warranty - would be first post but its taken me half an hour to write this.. :) )

When you are logged in as root you have unlimited access to all files, and it is possible to remove or modify a file that is vital to the system, this is generally not good, and often not required. If you set up a server securely you should be able to create accounts that have the access that you require to carry out specific tasks (still preferably using sudo, or su'ing to the relevant account), this is as much a common sense measure as pure security precaution.

You could argue that you can log in as root as long as you avoid using wild card designators when executing commands and keep track of your current working directory and try not to mess anything up, but there are a load good reasons to use sudo or su to root (or preferably an account specified for a task) instead, here are the ones I find most important:

Firstly you get some accounting, if Joe Bloggs su's to root and breaks / steals / misconfigure's something, at least you know it was Joe Bloggs (or someone using Joes account)

Secondly if you have remote access only as a non root user (this should be a given, never log in via ssh or webmin or whatever as root, (it can be a nightmare when you think your on system A but are on system B and do something you didn't mean to, never mind as root...) any attacker is going to have to find a non privileged account to gain access to a system, and then gain root privileges..

Thirdly if you have set up a number of administrative users for specific tasks you can compartmentalise your systems maintenance and you don't have to give someone you don't trust root access to carry out basic maintenance.

Lastly, the less you use your root account (directly or by whatever means) the less likely you are to break it. Lets be honest, I'd love to log in as root all the time, it would make life easier, but it would get rid of quite a few of the security benefits Linux/Unix brings and I'd probably break things more often. If you get used to using the root account you will continue to use it more and more until you find yourself logged in as root surfing the web whilst playing some bzflag beta just waiting for someone or something to break your box. (not to mention the hours you would spend making it possible to log in as root and use all your apps that are (probably) not going to like being run as root).

Personally when I set up a secure server I try to ensure that I have users with the relevant rights set up for specific tasks and no more and only issue those accounts to users who require them. I mount as many of the file systems as possible read only, I try to ensure I ship log files out to a box that no-one with root privileges on the first box has access to, and I automate as many of the maintenance tasks as possible. Oh and I don't use sudo, and on hyper critical servers the full root password is known to no one, I have half my oppo has the other half, and never the two shall meet (although this causes inconvenience when you do need it...!!)

This prevents foul ups and gives you a security baseline.

Oh and if you do log in as root make sure its not ever into a Desktop Environment (or any complex environment really) because there are just too many apps executing as root at that point to keep track of properly, and way too many potential security vulnerabilities...

Re:Use sudo rarely?

[techno-vampire]

Maybe I am missing something somewhere, but the 'use sudo if you absolutely need root' is crap.

You are. The right way to say it is, "Use sudo if you only need to run one command as root; log in as root only when you're going to need to do a number of things that require root."

As a side-note, somebody upstream noted that sudo doesn't change your environment, but becoming root does. If you don't need root's environment, just use su, instead of "su -" and you keep your current location, $PATH and other things.

root or root not; there is no try

[Tumbleweed]

Look, if you're too much of a pussy about using root because you might screw something up, you shouldn't have the root password anyway, should you. *pbbt* :)

Logging Who's On.

[Stephen Samuel]

If you've got a half dozen (or dozens of) people who have root login, and something goes on, all you have with a quick look at the log is that someone logged in at 4:15 pm and the system choked at 4:18.

If you force people to login as themselves and then SU (or sudo), then you know who was on the system with root when the system snarked ( And, if they use sudo instead of su, you can even have logs of the commands they used) -- it cuts down on the number of people you have to interview in the rush to figure out what broke the system.

Then, there's also the fact that if someone tricks you into doing something 'bad', it's less likely to catch you flatfooted as root if the only commands you exeute as 'root' are the ones that really need root.

As a last point: If you disable root logins (especially remote root logins), then a hacker needs to hunt down two passwords to get root access -- one for remote access and the other to get root.

Security isn't about making it impossible for an intruder to get in -- It's about making it hard enough that an attacker gives up and goes away -- even if they just go find an easier target (hi bill!).

Audit trail

[horatio]

In addition to the things the parent mentioned about privilege seperaration and permissions, sudo (if configured correctly) gives you an audit trail of what was done by whom and when. If someone fscks the database server, you'll know exactly who to beatdown and where to look for a restore point in your backups.

Apr 16 01:30:30 karma sudo: joeuser : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/joeuser ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/tail /var/log/auth.log

It will also let you know if someone is trying to do something you haven't authorized for them in the sudoers file.

On systems where I'm the only user, I almost always use a non-root account to do normal tasks. sudo lets me elevate privileges for the command I need to, ie

$ apt-get install reallycoolwidget

, and then drops back down so I don't forget to exit myself. sudo (generally) does not require you to retype your password for every command, there is a timer. If you're dumb|busy enough to walk away and leave your terminal unlocked, after a few minutes the next sudo attempt will ask for your password again.

One thing to remember, use visudo, not vi /etc/sudoers. The syntax check will likely save your ass one day.

Sudo weakens security

[jurgen]

The main problem with sudo is that it weakens security.

It seems that this is surprising to a lot of people because nobody has mentioned this, and people have mentioned that you should never allow remote root logins, yadda, yadda.

Actually there is no problem with remote root logins via ssh and public key authentication... just don't use/allow passwords. I'm continually amazed by how few people understand this, especially considering that practically everyone and their dog already uses ssh for everything anyway (except they use it as though it was telnet... doh!). Ssh is the best thing that ever happened to Unix security, but 99% of people, including sysadmins it appears, use only 1% of its power because they do not understand public key authentication. But I digress...

Passwords are almost always security's weakest link, unless you have truly exceptional password discipline (i.e. chose a good (long, random) pw, have a different one for every account, use it only in safe contexts, never, ever, ever share it even with your twin-sister-wife-best-friend, never write it down, etc). The problem with sudo, from a security standpoint, is that it adds the weakness of every sudoer's password to the root account. Think about this... the INSECURITY of your root account is increased by the sum of all the weaknesses and password in-displine of all your sudoers.

Let me say this again... with sudo your root account's password security is worse than the worst of the passwords of all the sudoers, it accumulates all the weaknesses, all the indiscretions of all your sudoers.

And don't give me any crap about limiting what commands a sudoer can invoke... with sudo any command/program that isn't specifically written to be a /secure/ SUID program is a conduit to root. To give you only the trivial example, you can't do much sysadmin with editing some root-only files, and most editors have a shell-out function. The moment you give anyone usuful sysadmin capabilities using sudo you've made their password a root password.

To their credit most of the people who wrote here that they like sudo like it for the convenience of logging priviledged actions. This is certainly a good practice. Just understand that it is a PRACTICE, not a security feature... if someone wants to get around it, they trivially can. If you want to log for security you have to do it in the kernel and most Unix kernels have such features nowadays.

So, if you want convenient logging of your own actions, go ahead and use sudo. If you want to /improve/ security, keep it away with a 10-foot pole, minimize the use and impact of all passwords, and use Ssh.

Btw., some ssh implementations can do everything you /think/ you're doing with sudo, such as limiting access to commands to certain users, logging actions, etc. Ssh is the swiss army knife of unix security... it can also be misused, but if you learn how to use it correctly and to its full extend you can stop using passwords and /dramatically/ improve your system security.

:j