RE: sudo vs. su (was Re: new to list, new to debian, new to linux)

["George" <nutndun@comcast.net>]

>From: S Scharf [mailto:ss11223@gmail.com] 
>Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 3:03 PM
>To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>Subject: Re: sudo vs. su (was Re: new to list, new to debian, new to linux)


>On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Mark Shroyer
<subscriber+debian@markshroyer.com> >wrote:

>It *would* be safer to use neither su nor sudo, and only have root log
>in on a separate, secure console, thereby eliminating the possibility of
>password sniffing from a compromised regular account.  However, few
>desktop Linux users actually run their computers this way.

>Actually on most systems I use, root login from the console is dis-allowed,
and the user
>must become root after logging into their own account. This provides an
audit trail on who
>logged in as root.

>Stuart

I was a little disappointed being called out on my suggestions in my
original post. Obviously the person isn?t a sys admin and from my
understanding the whole purpose of sudo is so the user only has root
privileges for that given command instead of during the entire terminal
session. I personally see nothing wrong with what I suggested other then
using visudo to edit the sudoers file instead of vim.  

George