Re: Problems With Root Account

• Subject: Re: Problems With Root Account
• From: Dan Shoop <email@hidden>
• Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:49:27 -0400
• Delivered-to: email@hidden
• Delivered-to: email@hidden

The file /etc/authorization is an XML plist that contains the default
authorization timeout periods - 300 seconds for some actions and 0
seconds (ask each time) for others. set them all to 3600 or so.

+ use visudo to edit the file /etc/sudoers and add/alter the line:

Defaults tty_tickets,timestamp_timeout=3600

then the sudo will only ask for a password once every hour for each
shell window  - use sudo -k when you're done to drop the ticket.

(+ take back-ups before modifying those files.)

that's a compromise between hassles of entering passwords for every
action - which is the actual complaint - and using the root account
directly, which is not good practise for everyone / may uncover other
problems.

-d

On Wed, 2008-03-26 at 18:08 -0400, Dan Shoop wrote:

On Mar 20, 2008, at 9:34 PM, liyas m wrote:

to enable root user..
http://www.spy-hill.com/~myers/help/apple/EnableRoot.html

Which is completely wrong since the root account /already is/ enabled
in OS X Server.

Using root isn't the issue. I, being an old time curmudgeon from the
pre-sudo days who tends not to do silly things like `rm -R /` (at
least not w/o knowing how to roll back my occassional stupidity) I
normally `ssh root@host` to perform tasks... but that's from a shell,
not the GUI.

And sudo is no panacea, as `sudo rm -R /` is just as bad there as w/o
having to type the sudo, so sudo really offers no protection at all.

Logging into the GUI as root is going to cause the same sorts of
problems it does from a machine running some X11 desktop GUI, it's
going to stomp on things unexpectedly.

-dhan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop
Computer Scientist
iWiring / U.S. Technical Services

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-dhan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop
Computer Scientist
iWiring / U.S. Technical Services

email@hidden
AOL IM .................... iWiring
Nextel .................... 1-714-363-1174
Operations TOC (24/7) ..... 1-866-901-USTS
USTS Offices .............. 1-714-374-6300

_______________________________________________
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