On Thu 24 Mar 2016 at 11:15:35 (-0400), Stefan Monnier wrote: > > Yes. Type w and you'll see the time at which you just logged in. > > That seems to me like a completely unimportant detail, with little to > no consequence. When compared to the consequences of having a shell > with uid==0 this seems like nitpicking. > > So, it confirms my suspicion that "root login" is used to refer to > a distinction that is pretty much irrelevant (tho I guess there is the > fact the root access occurs via some other local user, so you get > a tiny little bit of a trace). > > Stefan "who usually uses `su -` but thinks of it as a `root login`"
Whether the distinction is important to you or not doesn't change the meaning of the words themselves. Besides, I didn't think there were any unimportant details when dealing with security. "Sloppy usage usually implies, and certainly encourages, sloppy thinking." (CJ Date) Cheers, David.
