On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Solor Vox <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2 June 2010 10:31, Jim Cheetham <[email protected]> wrote:
>> If you are the owner of the computer in question and you are
>> "competant", there is no reason at all not to use root all the time.
>> Just set your uid to 0 and be done with it. I'm as serious with that
>> comment as I am with "writing passwords down", i.e. very serious.
>>
> This is both horrible and dangerous advice.  First, we are human and I

Not really. It's an extreme position and I put the word "competent" in
quotes. Personally, I don't run as UID 0 (although on my main
workstation only I do permit sudo with no password for my user).

I'm not going to bother with a point-by-point discussion of your
comments, they're all sufficiently correct. I just don't agree that
they are situations you need to guard against too strongly on a
workstation where you should be able to rebuild from an ISO with
minimal impact at short notice. That sounds a little bit like moving
the goalposts for the discussion, but it's part of the definition of
"competent" ... :-)

>> However, if you are *not* the owner (i.e. in any business context)
>> then sudo provides a very valuable audit log experience. You have 5
>
> Sure, sudo helps with logs if the admins use it.

Well, don't give them the choice. I'm talking about production systems
in a professional services model (ITIL etc), not just a bunch of guys
logging on to a webserver somewhere to hack on their blogs. In these
environments, audit is far more important than giving the admin a
pleasant work environment ..

-jim

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