On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Jeffrey Dunitz wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 18, 1999 at 12:41:18PM -0000, ayeats said something like:
> > Then it said what terminal(I hit return for vt220)
> > and then it said"Don't login as root, use the su command" 
> 
> I think that's in some config file somewhere. It is considered good practice
> to not log in as root directly, but to log in as yourself first, then use
> the su command to become root. 

It's in /root/.login, which is only run when you log into the root
account. I find it annoying as I usually su - to root (the - means act
like a login shell, so that I get "root" settings to a lot of stuff, not
my previous user's settings).

> In the "real world" where you have multiple admins on the same machine, it
> helps keep track of who did what. For a home machine, particularly one
> that isn't on the Internet directly, this rule means nothing, unless you
> just want to establish good habits so that you don't have a problem when 
> you get a job as an admin.

True

> If you haven't created an account for yourself yet, that should be
> the first thing you do.

Yes!

[snipped GOOD description of background processes]

> Now, why it appears to have hung your machine is a mystery. It could 
> have just messed up the display. On the other hand, if you were logged
> in as root, and typed something semi-destructive, you could have messed
> the machine up temporarily. Hard to say.
>  
> Chances are that if you logged into the machine remotely, and didn't do
> anything dangerous as root, you wouldn't have hung the machine. My Mac
> running NetBSD crashes more often than my other unix machines, but it's 
> still not easy to hang it. It's also overloaded, so who knows.

Also, the machine will be very cranky about root logging in over the
network. If you're logging in from a secure machine, like another home
machine wired to your NetBSD box, just log in as yourself and then su. If
you're logged in from outside, learn about security before you type root's
password as clear text over the network.

Take care,

Bill