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Date:      Thu, 07 Feb 2002 22:12:50 +0100
From:      "Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg" <listsub@rambo.simx.org>
To:        Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: toor?
Message-ID:  <3C62EDD2.70700@rambo.simx.org>
References:  <001e01c1af94$a14e04f0$2300a8c0@zeus> <20020207091505.A1036@encephalon.de> <20020207172522.GA2088@raggedclown.net> <3C62B9EE.3020009@rambo.simx.org> <20020207182321.GA27040@davinci.writeclick.co.za> <3C62C8B0.2010102@rambo.simx.org> <20020207185706.GA5479@raggedclown.net>

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Cliff Sarginson wrote:

>On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 07:34:24PM +0100, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:
>
>>Marcus Collins wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu,  7 Feb 2002 at 18:31:26 +0100, Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg wrote:
>>>
>>>>Could someone explain why you cant just chsh or vipw roots shell to 
>>>>bash, sh or whatever?
>>>>I cant see any good reason to have two root accounts just because you 
>>>>dont like the default root shell.
>>>>
>>>The default root account uses csh as its shell. This is located in /bin,
>>>which is (usually) in the / filesystem.
>>>
>>>You can set toor to use whatever shell you want, for example,
>>>/usr/local/bin/bash, and use that in day-to-day superuser operations. 
>>>
>>>If your /usr filesystem gets hosed, you can still login as root
>>>(= /bin/csh), assuming your / filesystem can still be mounted. This,
>>>AFAIK, is the theory behind having two UID 0 users, rather than just
>>>one with whichever shell you select.
>>>
>>>The "root" user is just a traditional name for UID 0. Any user with UID
>>>0 has superuser privileges.
>>>
>>>Cheers!
>>>
>>>-- Marcus
>>>
>>If root has a shell residing under /usr, and /usr for some reason is not 
>>mounted at boot, it will prompt you somehing like "Enter full pathname 
>>of shell or press enter for /bin/sh".
>>So this can not be the only reason there are two root accounts.
>>
>At the risk of being boring, I will repeat.
>There is one superuser id, 0, the 0 is what makes it the superuser.
>Since the dawn of Unix it has had the name "root", it could have been
>anything.
>It happens to be available on FreeBSD under 2 different names, and possibly the
>major reason is convenience, tied up perhaps with FreeBSD's ancestry
>which harks back to the early days of BSD, when the cshell was written.
>
I fully understand the concept of superuser and uid 0, that was not what 
I asked.
My question was why there are 2 superuser, or uid 0 if you wish, 
accounts added by default.

>
>I really think this little thread-ette has run it's course :)
>If you do not like it delete it, change root's shell, boil an egg :)
>
I totally agree, and hope the thread dies with this. :)

--
R



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