Re: Let's hope XP doesn't keep this "one-up" on OS X! [OT]
Re: Let's hope XP doesn't keep this "one-up" on OS X! [OT]
- Subject: Re: Let's hope XP doesn't keep this "one-up" on OS X! [OT]
- From: Art Isbell <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 13:17:16 -1000
On Friday, July 6, 2001, at 12:57 AM, Scott wrote:
I run off the root account now, but I've had
problems with it reverting to no user accounts, etc. and I have
to reset the
whole thing up again. It's just a huge pain in the behind for
someone who
is the only user of this machine. It's absurd to be forced to
setup users
in my case.
Running as root! Yikes!! Even most Unix administrators
(the wise, experienced ones, at least) don't run as root unless
they absolutely must. With root privileges, it's just too easy
to screw something up, and security is jeopardized with root
login enabled.
Apple has done something pretty clever with OS X. By
disabling root login, it's much more difficult for the usual Mac
OS user to break the operating system and for the hacker to
cause really serious damage. By creating admin users, those
things that most users need to do can be done without the risk
of serious breakage.
I fail to understand what's so difficult about letting the
operating system set up one admin user - that's the default
setup, after all! You had to expend much more effort setting up
to run as root and deleting the admin user. As the admin user,
you can use the sudo command to do those things that require
root privileges which are few and far between.
Art Isbell
Apple iServices Technical Support
http://www.apple.com/iservices/webobjectssupport/
+1-808-591-0836