From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Sep 21 15:23:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A01EB37B417 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:23:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-a125.otenet.gr [212.205.215.125]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.11.5/8.11.5) with ESMTP id f8LMN8n20918; Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:23:09 +0300 (EEST) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.11.6/8.11.6) id f8LHKQO78970; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:20:26 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from charon@labs.gr) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:20:25 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: PetBuilder Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Telnet & Root access Message-ID: <20010921202025.A75838@hades.hell.gr> References: <000c01c14266$5cc11660$0100a8c0@home> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <000c01c14266$5cc11660$0100a8c0@home> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.22.1i X-GPG-Fingerprint: C1EB 0653 DB8B A557 3829 00F9 D60F 941A 3186 03B6 X-URL: http://labs.gr/~charon/ 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 PetBuilder wrote: > I'm trying to telnet into a server with 4.3 and I can log in thru telnet > using a regular user name and pass but it will not accept the root log in > and pass. Well, don't. The TELNET protocol (the one uses between the telnet client you are using, and the server you are connecting to, to pass data over the network) does not include any form of encryption. Therefore, the password you are writing on your local terminal travels `through the wires' in a cleartext, unencrypted form. Anyone on an intermediate node running a packet sniffer can grab your password, and then use it to telnet to the machine too. You certainly don't want people being able to telnet to the machine as root now, do you? You should use Telnet with Kerberos, or SSH, if you want to connect to the machine as root. Even then, its always a lot better to connect as a normal user that belongs to the wheel group, and use su(1) to become root. The su(1) command will log the change of userid to the system logs too. -giorgos To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message