Re: New to debian -- question about shells & unused accounts
On Tue, Jul 28, 1998 at 01:33:29AM -0700, Chris Ulrich wrote:
> I recently got tired of taking care of my own installation of linux
> and decided to install debian. So far, I've been pretty happy with it.
>
> I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but I've got some questions
> right now.
>
> 1: Is it necessary to have all the dead accounts that come in the
> distribution password have /bin/sh as the shell? Some, like nobody
> and the qmail daemons, aren't suppose to have a real shell, because
> people aren't suppose to be able to log in with those IDs. Ever. I
> changed my password file, but it seems odd that they would be there
> in the first place.
They all have "*" in the password field by default, which means that
they can't login. Sometimes you do need to switch to them (with su),
so then they need a shell; as root, you can su to any account without
a password, even if it's locked. From memory postgresql requires you to
do all database admin work from its special account, not root, so you'd
su to root, then "su - postgres" again.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt, hamish@debian.org, hamish@rising.com.au, hmoffatt@mail.com
Latest Debian packages at ftp://ftp.rising.com.au/pub/hamish. PGP#EFA6B9D5
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