Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Workstations: good reasons for owner root access Message-ID: <8338@smoke.ARPA> Date: 14 Aug 88 03:19:47 GMT References: <125@leibniz.UUCP> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 11 In article <125@leibniz.UUCP> tpc@leibniz.UUCP (Tom Chmara) writes: > Are there any cogent arguments for or (gulp) against root access? The most serious problem is that, in many networking implementations, super-user access on one system is tantamount to super-user access on all machines in the entire (local) network. The UNIX "super-user" UID should really be used only by privileged utilities, not by people. There should be NO NEED, in a properly configured system, for a person to type "su" in order to perform system-administrative actions.