Can I create another root user account in Linux / UNIX?
Q. I’d like to create my root account in Linux. How do I do it?
A. Root user is superuser on a Unix / Linux system. Root user has all rights or permissions. . The root user can do many things an ordinary user cannot do on system such as start / stop services, grant / revoke any permissions, open ports (especially < 1024 ports), user management and much more. The root user is the most privileged user on the system and has absolute power over it.
By default almost all Linux distributions and UNIX like operating system creates the root account at the time of installation. You don’t have to create a new root account. Use su or sudo command to run administrative task as the root user.
Creating another root user can be a security risk. Root has a UID of zero in /etc/passwd. This means absolute control over the system for the root user. You can set any user id to 0 (zero) to grant unlimited permissions provided that you login as root.
However some variants of UNIX provides additional account. For example BSD provides a toor ("root" backwards) account in addition to a root account.
It is recommended that you use root only when required and there is no need to create a new root user account.
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Tags: absolute_control, administrative_task, permissions, privileged_user, root_account, root_user, security_risk, sudo_command, superuser, toor, user_management
May 18th, 2008 at 12:22 am
In general when a response is label A for answer, the response will actually answer the question
May 18th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Who can I change the root account Passward what was created at the time of installation.
I know the existing passowrd but I need to chenge it for security.
July 4th, 2008 (2 days ago) at 6:32 pm
so how do i do it, i know its a security risk just how do i do it.