1 |
> From: Spider <spider@g.o> |
2 |
> Organization: Chaotic |
3 |
> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 23:46:47 +0200 |
4 |
> |
5 |
> begin quote |
6 |
> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 21:09:03 +0200 |
7 |
> Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@g.o> wrote: |
8 |
> |
9 |
>> you seem to be mailing as root. If that is true, and your username is |
10 |
>> not aliassed to root, that is unsafe. One think making linux more |
11 |
>> resistant to viruses is that on linux most things do not run as root. |
12 |
>> E-mail clients certainly do not need to run as root. |
13 |
>> |
14 |
> |
15 |
> Ill bash in, quoting a message that appeared in -user the other day: |
16 |
> |
17 |
> ----- |
18 |
>> ... |
19 |
>> If I were you, I would post from |
20 |
>> a different user than root. |
21 |
> |
22 |
> Erm... but, of course, I do. I rather assumed that would be obvious. |
23 |
>... |
24 |
> |
25 |
> [silva:~] stroller% host stellar.eclipse.co.uk |
26 |
> stellar.eclipse.co.uk mail is handled (pri=10) by |
27 |
> mx1.ex.eclipse.net.uk stellar.eclipse.co.uk mail is handled (pri=20) by |
28 |
> mx2.ex.eclipse.net.uk |
29 |
> [silva:~] stroller% nslookup stellar.eclipse.co.uk |
30 |
> Server: gentoo.lan |
31 |
> Address: 192.168.1.43 |
32 |
> |
33 |
> *** No address (A) records available for stellar.eclipse.co.uk |
34 |
> [silva:~] stroller% |
35 |
> |
36 |
> As you can see, stellar.eclipse is virtually hosted. Is it really a risk |
37 |
> for me to post using this address..? |
38 |
|
39 |
Yeah, I was really quite astonished by the previous message in respect to my |
40 |
email address. I don't really know yet how to react to it, which is why I |
41 |
haven't changed my addy. |
42 |
|
43 |
I was initially quite offended that someone had mailed me to advise me "not |
44 |
to read mail as root" - I felt quite patronised. Do people really do that..? |
45 |
|
46 |
Whilst I didn't know any better than to log in as root the first week I had |
47 |
my Indigo (my first Unix box purchased 2nd-hand for £30 from the Comp Sci |
48 |
department) I've certainly never used the root account for reading mail, |
49 |
surfing the web or anything besides essential system administration on any |
50 |
working or live or network-connected machine. |
51 |
|
52 |
I appreciate now that Mr Gilburd (who, as Spyder observes, mailed me on this |
53 |
subject recently) and Paul were both well intentioned with their |
54 |
suggestions, but this raises other questions to me. |
55 |
|
56 |
If there really are folks out there reading mail from their root account (I |
57 |
mean, _is this possible?_), surely we need to be educating them better..? |
58 |
|
59 |
Maybe the NEED for a regular user should be spelled out more explicitly in |
60 |
the Gentoo installation documents. I see now that the subject is rather |
61 |
brushed over by a single line containing a link the the FAQ & the question |
62 |
"Everyone seems to think that i shouldn't be using root for everyday use, |
63 |
how can i add another user?" |
64 |
|
65 |
Maybe superadduser should be part of the base stages installation..? |
66 |
Instructions to `superadduser yournamehere` could be placed right before the |
67 |
setting-root-password section of the installation guide; the root password |
68 |
section could contain the explanation: |
69 |
"the root password is used in conjunction with the `su` command when you |
70 |
need to perform administrative tasks on your Gentoo box". |
71 |
Since completion of a stage-3 install is intended to provide a complete, if |
72 |
minimal, Gentoo-Linux installation, ISTM that adding a non-root user is |
73 |
perhaps an essential, rather than an optional, part of the process. |
74 |
|
75 |
I was really quite surprised when an redhat-newbie acquaintance recently |
76 |
showed me it was possible to log in as root to the GUI on a modern Linux |
77 |
system. I mean: why does the (kdm?) graphical login window permit this..? |
78 |
|
79 |
The root address was originally a joke. Like on those "I've got root" |
80 |
t-shirts at the GeekStore. When my ISP asked me what |
81 |
address@×××××××××××××××××××.uk I wanted, of course "root" was a cool choice. |
82 |
I see Spider is associated with a similar organisation. |
83 |
|
84 |
So I don't know yet whether I'll be changing my address or not. I mean: I |
85 |
like it. Why should I change it, just because it confounds people..? |
86 |
|
87 |
Thanks for tolerating 2 long posts in one day, |
88 |
|
89 |
Stroller. |
90 |
|
91 |
|
92 |
-- |
93 |
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |