Re: passwd oddity
>
> On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, E.L. Meijer (Eric) wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I administer a number of machines which have the same superuser
> > password. Some of them are PC's running debian. Some of the PC users
> > are quite able to administer their own machines. So I added extra root
> > accounts. In /etc/passwd this looks like
> >
> > root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
> > superdanny:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
> >
> > The problem is the following: some day Danny wants to change his
> > `superdanny' passwd and he types:
> >
> > $ su superdanny
> > Password:<his passwd>
> > # passwd
> >
> > Then two things happen that I don't like:
> > 1) He isn't asked for the old password,
> > 2) the password of root is changed, not that of superdanny
> >
> > Now I wonder: once logged in as `superdanny', is there a way for the
> > system to know that, despite uid being 0, this is superdanny, and not
> > root; and if there is a way, would the two points above classify as bugs?
> >
>
> I dont know about anyone else, but in my mind, two users with the same UID
> is a Bad Thing (tm). As for the different username... `echo $USER` or
> `whoami` dont know if either would work.. but anyway..
Usually yes. This is the only situation in which I use it. Different
people can gain root access with their own passwd while a general root
passwd still exists. Maybe I should look into a setup using sudo or
something similar.
Eric
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
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