[425] in athena10
Re: root logins
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mitchell E Berger)
Wed Aug 13 16:52:08 2008
Message-Id: <200808132051.m7DKpDJX013638@byte-me.mit.edu>
To: Geoffrey Thomas <geofft@MIT.EDU>
cc: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>, "athena10@mit.edu" <athena10@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:46:34 EDT."
<alpine.DEB.1.10.0808131646190.20980@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:51:13 -0400
From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
Hm. I guess that works, though it's the first I've ever seen it. I
think I'd still rather have people used to other distributions or other
Unixes (or Athena) able to do what they expect they can with su and a
known password, but I guess that would suffice if we really can't keep
it.
Mitch
> sudo -i
>
> --
> Geoffrey Thomas
> geofft@mit.edu
>
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, Mitchell E Berger wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
