*BSD News Article 99691


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
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From: nobody@not.for.email (Timothy J. Lee)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD Admin Questions
Message-ID: <timleeEDCJ3z.5o@netcom.com>
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References: <alex-1407971739000001@192.168.1.3> <5qev4e$9v3$1@news.smart.net>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 05:55:10 GMT
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:44449

surfer@gallows.smart.net (web surfer) writes:
|Alex Kac <alex@WebIS.net> wrote:
|>
|>Please forgive me, I have not been in the UNIX world for awhile, and just
|>got back in..plus this is the first time to actually administer a UNIX
|>server. Here are my questions:
|>
|>1) How do I log into root? Whenever I try via telnet, it tells me that
|>root cannot be logged on. All I need to do is setup a new user!
|
|most likely you will need to login as yourself then su to root.  i would
|recommend putting ssh on the systems involved to improve security.

Note the /etc/ttys file.  Some ttys are labeled as "secure" and some are
not.  root cannot login directly to the ttys not labeled as "secure" (one
has to login as a user in the "wheel" group and then su to become root).
The idea is to make cracking root remotely more difficult and to leave a
log from the su.

See "man ttys" for more information about /etc/ttys .
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee                                                   timlee@
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