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Date:      Fri, 18 Aug 1995 10:50:25 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Chuck Robey <chuckr@Glue.umd.edu>
To:        Eric Berchtold <eric_berchtold@bbs.fullcoll.edu>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: superuser
Message-ID:  <Pine.SUN.3.91.950818104644.8120D-100000@cappuccino.eng.umd.edu>
In-Reply-To: <46.53838.1@bbs.fullcoll.edu>

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On Thu, 17 Aug 1995, Eric Berchtold wrote:

> heya
>         Ive been playing around with a copy of FreeBSD V2.0, and I tried
> logging on as SU.  When I was installing it, it never told me what the
> su password was.  Do you know what the default would be?  Or, what is
> the file that I would have to view to see what the password is.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advanced.

su is a program that lets you masquerade as another user.  If you enter 
only su, it default to logging you in as root, which is the preconfigured 
superuser, so you need the root password here.  BTW, there is a man page 
on the su command, take a look at it.  One last point here, if you are 
new to unix, some folks try to do everything as root.  That's a major 
mistake, because root has the ability to do things like ruin your system 
with an accidental keystroke, which an ordinary user is prevented from.  
Additionally, there are security safeguards against root trying certain 
things.  I would strongly recommend against running as root all the time, 
it's a mistake.

----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Chuck Robey                 | Interests include any kind of voice or data 
chuckr@eng.umd.edu          | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
9120 Edmonston Ct #302      |
Greenbelt, MD 20770         | I run Journey2 (Freebsd 2.0.5-snap-0726) and
(301) 220-2114              | n3lxx (FreeBSD 2.0.5-snap-0622) -- Great!
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------




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