The Geekly Guy

This blog contains information regarding all things Linux, although any computer technology subject matter fits within the realm of this blog.

Saturday, May 17, 2003

I pulled this from http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/security.html#TOOR-ACCOUNT:
_________
13.5. What is this UID 0 toor account? Have I been compromised?

Do not worry. toor is an ``alternative'' superuser account (toor is root spelt backwards). Previously it was created when the bash(1) shell was installed but now it is created by default. It is intended to be used with a non-standard shell so you do not have to change root's default shell. This is important as shells which are not part of the base distribution (for example a shell installed from ports or packages) are likely be to be installed in /usr/local/bin which, by default, resides on a different filesystem. If root's shell is located in /usr/local/bin and /usr (or whatever filesystem contains /usr/local/bin) is not mounted for some reason, root will not be able to log in to fix a problem (although if you reboot into single user mode you will be prompted for the path to a shell).

Some people use toor for day-to-day root tasks with a non-standard shell, leaving root, with a standard shell, for single user mode or emergencies. By default you cannot log in using toor as it does not have a password, so log in as root and set a password for toor if you want to use it.
__________

I mention this because the paper copy of the FreeBSD handbook doesn't contain this. I saw an account called 'toor' on my box and immediately thought my box was compromised. I'm glad I 'googled' 'toor' before I deleted that account (not that I actually need it).

Notice that 'toor' is 'root' spelled backwards? :o)

That's my entry for the day! G'night!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home