Skip to Content
Embedded Linux for Developers
book

Embedded Linux for Developers

by Alexandru Vaduva, Alex González, Chris Simmonds
September 2016
Intermediate to advanced
989 pages
24h 10m
English
Packt Publishing
Content preview from Embedded Linux for Developers

Configuring user accounts

As I have hinted already, it is not good practice to run all programs as root since, if one is compromised by an outside attack, then the whole system is at risk and a misbehaving program can do more damage if it is running as root. It is preferable to create unprivileged user accounts and use them where full root is not necessary.

User names are configured in /etc/passwd. There is one line per user, with seven fields of information separated by colons:

  • The login name
  • A hash code used to verify the password , or more usually an x to indicate that the password is stored in /etc/shadow
  • UID
  • GID
  • A comment field, often left blank
  • The user's home directory
  • (Optional) the shell this user will use

For example, this creates users root ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Embedded Linux Systems with the Yocto Project

Embedded Linux Systems with the Yocto Project

Rudolf J. Streif
Hands-On System Programming with Linux

Hands-On System Programming with Linux

Kaiwan N. Billimoria, Tigran Aivazian

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781787124202