UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello!
I found this on net:

Code:

This is the ``prompt''. If you entered you username, or your password incorrectly, you will be greeted by:   
 Login incorrect 
localhost login:  
Don't panic, try again. Likely you either mis-typed either your login name, or your password. Try again. You're not logging in as root, are you?

Please, what happens if superuser mistypes its username/password? What was ment by this remark?
Many thanks!!!

It depends on the Operating System, version and configuration options taken. A number of things may (or not) happen:-The closing comment may be displayed because many servers do not allow remote access by super-user accounts. They are restricted to console login only to reduce the risk of them being attacked over the network.



Robin

On some systems the direct login of the root user is prohibited as a security measure. To become root one would have to log on as normal user and only then use

Code:

su - root

or something similar ("sudo", ...) to become root. It might be that your system is configured this way. You can usually see this in the "/etc/passwd" file where user accounts not allowed to log in directly have a certain field marked. For instance (from an AIX system, notice the "!"/"*" after the users name):

Code:

root:!:0:0::/:/usr/bin/ksh
daemon:!:1:1::/etc:
bakunin:*:999:1:bakunins normal user:/home/bakunin:/usr/bin/ksh

The users "root" and "daemon" are not allowed to log in ("!" in the second field), whereas "bakunin" is allowed to log in ("*" in the second field).

I hope this helps.

bakunin