Re: dangerous to leave root logged in?

From: Unruh (unruh-spam_at_physics.ubc.ca)
Date: 03/28/05 

Date: 28 Mar 2005 21:31:38 GMT

hans_schulze98@yahoo.de writes:

>Thanks.
>It's not "the" console, it's an extra console or extra X-server just
>for system maintenance.
>Isn't that safer than typing the root password into an untrusted user's
>screen?

Alt-ctrl-F2 ( or F3, F4, F5, F6) will give you a separate console into
which you can su as root for the brief time you need to use it.
If you really really need an X session, do
startx -- :1
to start up a new X session, however any user who uses that computer from
the keyboard can also swithch to that root X session or root console
sessiona nd thus has all priviledges of root.

IF the computer is on the net, you could ssh to it, log in as yourself and
then su to root.

Again, be more specific about the problem

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