Root Logins in X...

Warren Togami wtogami at redhat.com
Thu Jan 22 07:13:32 UTC 2009


Let us step back and consider the actual goal of preventing root logins.

We want to stop people from logging in as root on their X desktop
because it is almost always done out of laziness.  We want to discourage
these lazy users from logging in as root and using desktop applications,
which can be a dangerous thing.

The only legitimate reason to allow root login is disaster recovery.
The case where /home filesystem is full and logins fail, or /home is
remote and inaccessible are cases where graphical non-root logins can fail.

So why don't we make root logins from GDM a stripped down desktop with
only a terminal and a menu with only configuration tools?  This desktop
should be ugly and with a very obvious note explaining why they
shouldn't be logged in as root.

Benefits?
- Educates the users.
- Prevents future stupid flame wars.

Just a thought... I don't particularly care what happens here.  I never
log in as root on X.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com




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