Re: upgrading ubuntu to debian

On Thursday 30 August 2007, Cassiano Bertol Leal wrote:
Celejar wrote:
On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:03:17 -0400

Hal Vaughan <hal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thursday 30 August 2007, Ron Johnson wrote:
On 08/30/07 14:37, Hal Vaughan wrote:
[snip]

While it's just a small, niggling detail and may be just
semantics, there is a true root account on Ubuntu that can be
used the same as a root account on any Debian release. The only
difference is it doesn't have a password on setup.

You've GOT to be kidding... Right? Please?

On Debian you enter the root pw at setup. You don't on Ubuntu,
but when I setup a new Ubuntu system, all I do is create a root
password w/ sudo and from then on it works like any other system
with a root account.

Is that so surprising, or did I miss something?

I think that Ron understands that the root account on Ubuntu is
accessible by anyone without entering a password; I seem to recall
(from posts to this list) that actually no one can access the
Ubuntu root account until a password has been set for it.

Not being able to access an account without a password is default
even for Debian, AFAIK. I have done this once, deleting the password
hash from an account in /etc/shadow, and then trying to login with
that user. Couldn't find a way, and actually used it as some form of
security. This is probably what happens in Ubuntu, too.

Considering that the user has full sudo access and that the root
account actually exists, it should be no surprise that a 'sudo passwd
root' would give the user login access to the root account.

Yes. It was my mistake in how I was wording things. I was in a hurry
and thinking about another email, so I wasn't specific about the issue
of not being able to log in. I was just thinking about what I did that
worked.

Hal


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