*BSD News Article 59005


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: New user question..;-)
Date: 8 Jan 1996 12:58:26 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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References: <4cp7qr$tnj@irk.zetnet.co.uk>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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phil.burden@zetnet.co.uk (Philip Burden) writes:

> initial login.I find I can login as 'root',but BSD tells me to log in 
> as myself,and not root.Is 'root' the default super-user login name,if 
> not,what is?.I assume it isn't,since I can't seem to run some 
> exe's,notably sysinstall.Any help would be appreciated ;-)

root is the default administrator.  But that's just the reason why you
should avoid logging in as root: it's dangerous.  Instead, add a
regular account for you (e.g. with adduser), put the name of this user
at the end of the first line (``wheel'') in /etc/groups, and log in as
yourself.  Once you need to become root, simply type ``su'' (or ``su
root''), do what needs to be done, and exit the administrator shell
again.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)