On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Matt Zimmerman wrote: > On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 10:18:07AM +0800, John Summerfield wrote: > > > However, don't suppose that not having a root account called root is > > something you would want to do. > > It would earn you dirty looks from wizened UNIX folk, but should be > supported. > > > Just a couple of hours ago I was looking at a Debian script that asumes > > "id -u -n" returns root for UID=0. > > Please report a bug against that package, or tell me where you saw this and > I will report the bug.
The script is su-to-root, the package menu. I'd certainly not bet that the same thing doesn't occur in Red Hat Linux, and the fact someone ran RHL without an account called root doesn't mean a lot. I'm sure I could run this system for a long time without running into the problem. I don't think using UID=0 as a test for whether a user has the capacity to perform some action is all that wonderful either, though I don't know a better way. In some cases, one can test by trying to do it - to see if I can write in a particular directory, try to create a file there.Lots of people here have /usr mounted ro. Some may have played with LIDS. I had a play with Engarde Linux a while ago, and root is severely curtailed. -- Cheers John. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
