Securing Superuser Access
The UNIX superuser identity is immune from restrictions placed on other users of the system. Any UNIX account with a UID of zero (0) is the superuser. All UNIX systems have a default superuser login named root. The user of this account can access any file and run any command. This login is valuable because any user who might have gotten himself into trouble by removing access permissions, forgetting his password, or simply needing a file from an area to which he doesn’t have access can be helped by root.
However, root access can be dangerous. Root can delete anything, including the operating system (most system administrators have deleted the entire root file system at some time). The root login is both dangerous ...
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