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RE: How to properly setup SSH Key Authentication - If you are logging into your server with root, you are doing it wrong!
I'm a newish Linux user with mint, which, as I understand doesn't let you use the root account. Although the main account can do root commands with sudo.. but I still don't quite understand the distinction and if, I shouldn't use that main account still. Any advice would be appreciated
sudo just gives you temporary root permissions. You can think of the sudo command as a temporary switch user command. The
sucommand in linux allows you to switch user sosudois like "switch user, do as". Try it yourself, with your main account type thewhoamicommand and it should return your username. Then typesudo whoamiand and it should returnroot. This just tells you that what ever command you run aftersudoyou run withrootpermissions.yeah, but confusing why sudo accepts my account password, and mint doesn't even let you log into root with su.... so I'm feeling like I'm secure because mint doesn't let me use root, but wondering if I'm less secure than I think.... :-(
@inquiringtimes I'm not as familiar with Mint as others, but I think it's just a flavor of Debian (to which Ubuntu is as well). You can log in to your root account by typing
sudo suon the command line. Because your main account is a part of the sudoers group you have the ability to usesudo. If you're a former windows junkie who has seen the light like I was, then it's similar to right-clicking on a program and saying "run as Administrator". As long as you are using your main account and you have a secure password I think you're probably fine.I was just stuck with windows until I installed linux without doing a dual boot... ONLY LINUX. Yes, mint is ubuntu\debian flavoured.
I got a new computer recently, I'm going to up my security in a number of ways on the new one... I love how simple linux is to use compared to 15 years ago.... the first time I tried to install linux was a nightmare... hehe. now I only am forced to learn commandline stuff occasionally, which gives me a gradual learning process on the deeper workings.