Thoughts about running as root

[Brian Densmore]

I have done some damage as root. But I don't come from a sysadmin
background.
I always log in as a user and if I need root privilege I just su to root
and do what I need.
I have also altered my default sign on to give me the power I need as a
user to do some
none critically destructive things. Like burning a CD. I also have added
the kdesu to many of the GUI menu items that I consider to be the realm
of root. This forces me to think before acting.
"Do I really know what it is I am doing here?"
"Do I really want to do this as root?"
"Is it safe?" [pan to Dustin Hoffman]

$0.02,
Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Hutchins [mailto:hutchins at opus1.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 2:12 PM
> To: kclug at kclug.org
> Subject: Thoughts about running as root
> 
> 
> Ever since I started messing with Linux, there's been this 
> conflict.  All
> the experienced gurus, authors, and pundits strictly advise 
> against running
> as root.  With a new install, especially of the older 
> distributions, you
> can't do squat except as root.  Even now, most of my time in 
> Linux is not
> spent in userland, but working on the system.
> 
> As with the "warning" on editing your crontab, though, I 
> think this is a
> spurious caution.  Most of the "errors" that they warn you 
> about are errors
> that would only be made by someone with a good deal of 
> experience running
> Linux as a user.  For instance, I've never issued "rm -r *" 
> or it's deadly
> variants in years of use.
> 
> It may be that having come from a system-level environment, 
> either running
> DOS on PC's or running JCL and system management on 
> mainframes, I'm more
> aware of what I'm doing.  Or it may just be that the habits 
> I've built up in
> Linux are based on the fact that I'm root, and I know I can affect the
> system if I don't pay attention.
> 
> So while it's fairly dangerous for someone with a lot of Unix user
> experience to run Linux as root, for me it's no worse than 
> running DOS as
> ... well, running DOS.
> 
> 
> 
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