Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'Note of Caution' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Note of Caution
Authored by: Anonymous on May 06, '01 06:34:16PM
This is indeed a handy bit of knowledge, but there are a few points that we all need to start taking into consideration, most importantly: security.

I have three machines in my office, two more or less public machines as mentioned in the original post. Even though they are just a couple of feet apart, I will do the same as my students are often sitting at these machines. I can't kick them off just to do something, so I'll connect remotely and then use sudo. As of 10.0.2, ssh is now standard, so it's easy (and secure) to ssh other.machine from my desk, sudo mail, for example, and then log out. The students never know the machine is dually being used, and, more importantly, they have no way of gaining information about root!

Logging into root, though handy, is considered insecure as others could gain knowledge of the login information. Telnet and rlogin (both very, very handily used in the past) are also suspect these days in relation to security. Use ssh and sudo (or, if you are doing several things, su), and keep your machines secure.

Just a note of caution.

Cheers,
ptervin


[ Reply to This | # ]