Re: Second ROOT account

From: Bill Unruh (unruh_at_string.physics.ubc.ca)
Date: 08/26/03 

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 04:59:24 +0000 (UTC)

pbs <pnews@lomarline.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

]Saikat Guha wrote:
]> Sybren Stuvel wrote:
]>
]>>Eric enlightened us with:
]>>
]>>>I would create a second root account on my machine ? How can i do
]>>>it ? (i have Red Hat 9)
]>>
]>>You can't. You can give other people (limited or unlimited) root
]>>access with 'sudo' though.
]>
]>
]> You can add another user with uid=0, gid=0 in the /etc/passwd file. Although
]> they will have their own username and password for login purposes, once
]> they log in, the shell variables and the prompt etc will still say root.

]They may not. I think that this is undefined behaviour, it depends what
]algorythm is used for accessing the password file. I would not bet my
]system on this.

?? An experiment will make it clear.
On login, the getpwnam is used, since that is the only info the system
has
The getpwnam() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the
       broken out fields of a line from /etc/passwd for the entry that
matches
       the user name name.

>From this the uid is obtained, which in this case is 0. Thereafter as
always with Linux, the uid is used, which is uid 0

I have often done exactly this-- had two names with uid 0, both in SunOS
and in Linux, and it has always worked fine.

]I suggest that you use "sudo" or set up a root group in /etc/group and
]alter the group permissions on those files which the group needs to
]alter.

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