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Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 07:23:47 +0100
From: Jez Hancock <jez.hancock@munk.nu>
To: freebsd <questions@freebsd.org>
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Subject: Re: freebsd Is this a hack  or a system for root
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On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 06:09:19AM +0000, DanB wrote:
> Is this a hack  or a system for root? This is in password file.
> 
> toor:*:0:0: :0 Bourne-again Superuser :/root
toor is just another user with EUID 0 (effective user id) - ie another
'root' account.  The account is disabled by default (hence the '*' in
the password field) and won't be activated unless you change the
password using chpass or vipw or another password changing util.

The 'toor' account can be quite useful if you have more than one admin
who needs UID 0 access on a server and you don't want to get the
shell histories of the users mixed up.

Not sure what the historic details are regarding the 'toor' account -
all I know is it's been around since 4.4.

-- 
Jez Hancock
 - System Administrator / PHP Developer

http://munk.nu/