Re: arm people distributing images with user 1000 already allocated, please stop that

[emetib <chadbrabec@gmail.com>]

> > [use sudo]
> >
> > > The last time I tried that, some years ago, it demanded the old
> > > passwd first. I think that was about Red Hat 7.1's day. I'd been
> > > using it since 1998 and 5.0.
> > >
> > > > i hope that this helps some for future reference.
> > >
> > > If no pw is needed, great.
> >
> > `passwd` invoked as the root user does not require you to provide the
> > current password. You can set the password for any user, including the
> > default user of root. So you would need to invoke 'sudo passwd' to
> > change/set the root password without being prompted for the existing
> > one.
> 
> That policy has been changed then. Its been quite some time, possibly a 
> decade or more since I have attempted that procedure. The last time I 
> tried that, I was asked for the old password, and having forgotten it, 
> was refused. I wound up taking that drive to another machine and 
> removing the root pw in both passwd and shadow files.  Then I could set 
> a new one and did when the drive was re-installed in the machine it ran.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett

i believe that gene is correct on this.

checking with a couple of virtual machines that i have, have found that just with the 'sudo shutdown -r now' command the passwd changes.

debian testing -- asks for the user's passwd
centos7 -- asks for the user's passwd
mageia -- asks for user's passwd
opensuse leap -- asks for root's passwd

personally i think that every distro should ask for a root passwd and one username upon installation.  from there the sysadmin can assign people what privileges by putting them in whatever group, and then assign that group in /etc/sudoers.