Torvalds: requiring root password for mundane things is "moronic"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 28th Feb 2012 23:11 UTC
Linux Linus Torvalds on requiring the root password for mundane tasks. "So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace 'my kids' with 'sales people on the road' if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place." Yes, it's harsh (deal with it, Finns don't beat around the bush), but he's completely and utterly right. While there's cases where it makes sense to disable certain settings (public terminals, for instance), it is utterly idiotic that regular home users have to type in their root password for such mundane tasks.
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Soulbender
Member since:
2005-08-18

However, for servers, you should never use sudo.


No, it's great for servers and should always be used since it enables better permission control and audit trails.

Most servers have servers such as openssh and mail running.


That's why you don't use password authentication with ssh. If you need people to use sftp with passwords you always use chroot and force the accounts to be sftponly.
Most servers do not have mail running and for those that do the email username and password are more often than not different from the system users and passwords.

Hopefully this extra time will make it possible for someone to notice the attack.


If they didn't already catch the brute force on the account I doubt they'll catch the brute force on root.

Full sudo rights on a server == full root for everyone on the internet courtesy of botnets.


100% wrong.

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