*BSD News Article 99426


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
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From: nobody@not.for.email (Timothy J. Lee)
Subject: Re: Can 'root' login through telnet connection?
Message-ID: <timleeED52D1.4xC@netcom.com>
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Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 05:10:13 GMT
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Jaroslav Klaus <klausik@skunk.sh.cvut.cz> writes:
|Is it possible $subj ? Now when I type 'login root'
|and answer correct password it returns 'Login incorect'.
|Where can I anable it?

Whether root is allowed to login on a specific tty is
controlled by the /etc/ttys file.  Those ttys that are
marked as "secure" allow root to login.  On others, one
must login as someone else and use su to become root.
A user needs to be in the wheel group to be able to su
to root.

For security reasons network logins as root are often
disallowed, since su leaves a log, and a system cracker
needs to crack two passwords (one for a user in the wheel
group, one for root) to do a network login as root
(assuming that the cracker does not find other security
holes in network services).

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee                                                   timlee@
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