Re: User permissions and groups

[mike808@users.sourceforge.net]

> what are some good changes to make to my user in order to save 
> myself from changing to root all of the time.

Um, make the root password the empty string? :=)
Or, stop doing stuff that you have to be root for. :=)
Or, login as root, and don't worry about that stuff anymore. :=)

More seriously, check out SSH. You could setup SSH keys and run an agent.
Basically, you put your public keys on the box you want to SSH to.
Then you run an agent locally, and add in your private keys. When you
SSH to a remote site, it checks if the private keys you have will let you in.
Presto, no passwords. And you can even forward credentials, so if you SSH
to another box from there, it checks the keys in the agent against that system.
But your private key files never leave your primary system.

And you can tunnel X and all sorts of other fun things too.

In your case, you would allow someone to login as "root" without a password
if they presented your private SSH key. Then you just 'ssh -l root localhost'
to "su" without typing root's password.

Be careful, as you may get so used to this, that when forced to login from 
another system *without* your SSH keys, you will need to remember what that 
root password was, and since you thought you'd never need it again, you 
promptly forgot it. :=)

Mike808/

---------------------------------------------
http://www.valuenet.net



-
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
"unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.