Re: root via ssh / why su - ?
On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 12:39:54PM +0200, Timo Blazko Boewing wrote:
> A silly theoretical question: in a ssh thread above, one got the answer *not*
> to enable root user access to a station, it would be better to use a limited
> user account and then gain access via su or that.
> What is the difference between that. Don't I have full admin rights with su?
> Or if I have, what is the difference? Is it cos a direct root login allows to
> exploit the sys due to some scripts that get autom. exec'd?
> I just want to know....cos thus I know why I do things that way :-)
Two reasons come to mind:
1) In order to gain remote root access, an attacker must first compromise a
user account to log in with. Simply obtaining the root password is not
sufficient.
2) It is possible (though not likely) that there may be a little-known
technique for sniffing the data sent while establishing an ssh connection.
If such a technique were to exist, disabling root logins would ensure that an
attacker using it would only get a user password while the root password
would remain secure.
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