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Re: itp: static bins / resolving static debian issues



* Justin Wells said:
> 
> I think we should consider that the alternate root user should be the
> one with bash as a shell. This is primarily because single user mode
> doesn't give you a choice about which user's shell it's going to 
> drop you into. 
> 
> The alternate root user could be used for day to day administration 
> and could have a dynamically linked shell.
Hmm.... no, I don't think it will work. You must remeber about the power of
habit - people are USED to the root account and we can't ignore it. The
issue with a single mode is easily to be worked around by slightly modifying
the sulogin program - passing it an additional parameter with the account
name would do.
 
> This has an additional advantage:
>   
>    -- you can default the bash user's password to '*' (password disabled) 
>       and an administrator who wants to long in and use bash can then 
>       use passwd to set this to something else
> 
> Now you don't have to worry about cloning the root user's password. 
I guess that the cloning is much more acceptable than totally changing the
admin's habit to use the root account. Cloning can be done fully
automagically.
 
> The further we go with this discussion, the more arguments arise that 
> seem to push us toward the same solution already adopted by several 
> other Unixes, which have a bash UID 0 as "toor". 
It seems so that we really need it.

marek

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