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.