Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 08:03:43 +0000 From: Craig Edwards <brain@winbot.co.uk> To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org Subject: Renaming root account Message-ID: <4226C4DF.3050806@winbot.co.uk>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi everyone, One quick question: Is it safe and/or sensible to rename the root account, so that the only uid 0 user on a system is something different to root? I can see how this would be effective against external attackers who have no knowledge of the internals of the system as they would spend pointless hours trying to crack a user which doesnt exist, however to internal users they could always just cat /etc/passwd and see that root has been renamed. So firstly, is this possible, and security wise is it of any real use? Can anyone think of any apps it would break that assume that the uid 0 user is called root and don't just address the user by its uid? Thanks, Craig Edwards - -- WinBot IRC client developer: http://www.winbot.co.uk ChatSpike - The users network: http://www.chatspike.net InspIRCd - Modular IRC server: http://www.inspircd.org Online RPG Developer: http://www.ssod.org - -- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCJsTf0k42Wxli/BARAp2DAJ9dp1eu2IL41pfp/4ZFp9kS2KuMdgCeI20k w1Jt+uriEmWM+wmhEFxH+vw= =vGhO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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