Questions tagged [root]

The "root" account is the most privileged account on a Unix system.

The "root" account is the most privileged account on a Unix system. This account gives you the ability to carry out all facets of system administration, including adding accounts, changing user passwords, examining log files, installing software, etc.

When using this account it is crucial to be as careful as possible. The "root" account has no security restrictions imposed upon it. This means it is easy to perform administrative duties without hassle. However, the system assumes you know what you are doing, and will do exactly what you request -- no questions asked. Therefore it is easy, with a mistyped command, to wipe out crucial system files.

When you are signed in as, or acting as "root", the shell prompt displays '#' as the last character (if you are using bash). This is to serve as a warning to you of the absolute power of this account.

The rule of thumb is, never sign in as "root" unless absolutely necessary. While "root", type commands carefully and double-check them before pressing return. Sign off from the "root" account as soon as you have accomplished the task you signed on for. Finally, (as with any account but especially important with this one), keep the password secure!

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How do you rename root?

Not that it's a very good idea to change it, but for fun. According to this post, there are still some problems even after changing entries in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/sudoers. Any suggestions?
yxkb
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What is the difference between root and superuser?

Do they refer to the same thing or is root just a location in filesystem (its ultimate base) and superuser a privileged user (sort of equivalent of windows administrator account) ? Do they need the same password ? Is superuser the kernel itself?
explorest
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Error when running ((x++)) as root

I make bash script temp.sh with the following content: age=0; ((age++)); When I run it as a normal user, it runs fine. But when i run it as root I get error: ./temp.sh: 4: ./temp.sh: age++: not found Why is that?
john-jones
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How do I run a command without root properties

Say I am logged in root, and some commands don't let me to run them in root. I tried to login different accounts, but I'm not able to do such a thing. How can I execute such command (logged in root) without the root properties?
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Power of a root process to inspect memory

I know on a Linux machine, if a process is able to get root privilege, it can access parts of the file system it normally wouldn't have access to. I want to ask whether a rooted Linux process can inspect memory of any other process on a system ? So…
Jake
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root account expired

I have two accounts on my computer: james and john. james is the only administrative account and a few days ago I set it to expire out of curiosity. Now am stuck. I can not login using james because it has expired, I can not use john for anything…
sphinx
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Why is "nobody" called the "most privileged user after root"?

When I was first learning Linux I recall reading that because it is so widely used, "nobody" is (jokingly?) known as the "second most privileged user, after root" on Unix machines. A quick google search seems to corroborate that it is a common…
Wildcard
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Root password keep changing

This is frustrating. I am often able to login with a root password. Then I cannot login again. However, I am still logged in. Hence my password must be correct. I changed the root password with passwd. It works again. Then sometimes latter this…
user4951
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Can I have more than one superuser account in unix?

I've started learning Unix (coming from the windows world) and was wondering if I can create other users in the Unix with the same powers as the root user and # on their shell prompts?
Ehsan Irannejad
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can root user assume any uid

I know that the root user can access all files / commands on the system but can Can a root / su user assume any other uid? The reason I ask is looking at http://nelenkov.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/storing-application-secrets-in-androids.html it says a…
Dori
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Root users home directory (/root) modified

Both Thunar and the ls command tell me that the /root folder has been modified recently. Using the find -mtime -1 command within the /root folder, I discovered that a hplip log had been modified. Is this normal? (For the /root to be modified) - I…
olfek
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service command and non-root user

On the linux servers of our main customer our bash scripts were running under root for years. Now we want to change that for security reasons. Some of our scripts were triggered by the "service" command, for example "service filescontrol start".…
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Not able to create directory under /var/log as root user

What could be the reason for the following erorrs. I ran the script as a root user. I believe the root user must be having super user permissions. It was failing with the following error mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/var/log/hadoop’: Permission…
Nag
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Should I open the files in /home/user/ as root?

I do su root and then nano -w /home/myusername/configfile ... will this cause any problems ? Will it change the ownership of configfile ?
l3gi0n
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Bash script fails when run on sudo

The script below is to download, check integrity, extract, remove archive files and install GnuPG 2.1.x. I reliased that the script fails to proceed if it's run as sudo, sudo -i etc. It generates error when checking dependencies for libgcrypt-1.7.6,…
Celdor
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