From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Dec 30 12:41:47 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from cepheus.azstarnet.com (cepheus.azstarnet.com [169.197.56.195]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57D8537B41C for ; Sun, 30 Dec 2001 12:41:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from there (dhcp70.mc01.dsl.fastucson.net [169.197.8.70]) by cepheus.azstarnet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id NAA21129 for ; Sun, 30 Dec 2001 13:41:38 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200112302041.NAA21129@cepheus.azstarnet.com> X-Sent-via: StarNet http://www.azstarnet.com/ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Jeffrey To: FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Can I rename root? Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 13:41:46 -0700 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] References: <20011229154552.B855@localhost> <20011230103317.A474@localhost> In-Reply-To: <20011230103317.A474@localhost> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sunday 30 December 2001 02:33 am, Rogier Steehouder wrote: > > Do any programs rely on the name > > 'root' being available or is it prefectly safe to use vipw and rename it > > to 'master' or 'admin'. > Besides the user and group databases the following files mention root: > /etc/aliases I had already redirected root to my regular user: > no problem > /etc/crontab Replaced 'root' with 'admin' Not that I am even brave enough to rename root (I trust the instincts of those with more experience than I). I am not sure what you are gaining by doing this.... I am assuming you are doing this to obtain some security by obscurity, right? If so why not choose something a bit less obvious than admin? I would guess that someone breaking into your system upon not finding a root would see the admin account for what it is pretty quickly..... Second, if one only gains access to your system via a standard user account what is keeping them from looking for the 0 UID in /etc/passwd? That will probably tip them off pretty quickly as to what account they should be targeting. I am still pretty new at all of this, I am just trying to figure out how the benefits outweigh potential risks/abnormalities. Jeffrey To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message