[423] in athena10
Re: root logins
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mitchell E Berger)
Wed Aug 13 16:46:19 2008
Message-Id: <200808132045.m7DKjWbr013590@byte-me.mit.edu>
To: Evan Broder <broder@MIT.EDU>
cc: Xavid <xavid@MIT.EDU>, Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>,
"athena10@mit.edu" <athena10@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:40:27 PDT."
<8A4EBD1A-4AB8-433D-9916-413F2D3E2BB9@mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:45:32 -0400
From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
People who are used to Linux expect sudo? Really? I thought that
was an Ubuntuism. But I can't stand it, and the first thing I do
when I reboot after an Ubuntu install is set the root password, and
I can't remember ever setting up an Ubuntu machine for someone else
where they didn't either ask me for the root password or set it
themselves. It's really sort of annoying when you need to hunt
something down by running several privileged commands and need to
preface each one with 'sudo', and I've had people laugh at me for
running 'sudo /bin/sh', so I'm not sure what they think the right
thing is.
Mitch
> I'm also a fan of using sudo, because it works with the "Athena 10 is
> normal Ubuntu with some custom packages" thing. People who are used to
> Linux expect sudo, not su with some obscure command to get the root
> password.
>
> - Evan
>
>
>
> On Aug 13, 2008, at 1:33 PM, Xavid <xavid@MIT.EDU> wrote:
>
> >
> > On 2008/08/13, at 16:16, Jonathan Reed wrote:
> >
> >> Alternatively, is there a need for ordinary users to become root in
> >> clusters any more?
> >
> > I know of at least one class (6.824) that had students become root
> > in order to install a kernel module. In general, I think it's nice
> > to let people who have a need for root to use it in clusters. In
> > Athena 10, this would provide an easy way for people to
> > (temporarily) install software without having to build it from
> > source in a locker.
> >
> > Personally, I'd be in favor of using sudo instead of a widely-known
> > root password for clusters, but I don't have any particularly
> > compelling arguments either way.
> >
> > ~Xavid
