theoretical question - can root's username be changed?

[Guy Fraser]

On Sat, 2005-03-12 at 07:38 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 15:20 -0500, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, Mike McCarty wrote:
> > >
> > > One thing I can think of: There are e-mails sent to root
> > > from various subsystems to notify of events.
> > 
> > But you don't need to have the userid to route mail successfully.  See 
> > /etc/aliases:
> > 
> >  	...
> >  	# Person who should get root's mail
> >  	#root:          marc
> > 
> > Just uncomment the second line above and put the forwarding address in 
> > place of "marc", save, run newaliases, and mail forwarding works, even if 
> > there is no root user.
> > 
> > I'm not claiming everything works with no root, but mail forwarding does.
> 
> If I am understanding correctly though, there are many aliases with root
> on the right side, and the entries on the right must be a valid username
> or address.  
> 
> I think it may work after performing the change you show above, but that
> would be a *mandatory* condition if the root user name did not exist.

Actually No.
The right hand side can be an alias among many other things 
and does not have to have an account. Only the final destination 
alias must exist if mail is being delivered to a local mailbox.

EG.
wylliecoyote: canus.carnivorus at animals.are.us
postmaster: root
trogdoor: root
burnination: root
root: somebody
somebody: bugsbunny,wylliecoyote

This will send any mail destined for ;
postmaster, trogdoor, burnination, root and somebody 
To ;

bugsbunny and canus.carnivorus at animals.are.us

Only bugsbunny needs to have account.