James Freer <jrjfr...@gmail.com> writes: > I would be grateful if someone could explain why admin root user is > not set to default. I have always had user login and password and then > root for for other tasks like Aptitude updates. [I am a fan of > Aptitude although most folk seem to prefer Apt]. > > Also not sure where to set root admin user. I suppose it doesn't > matter if one is using Debian on a home PC like myself rather than a > server but i'd just like to know.
I am not sure if I understand what you mean by "admin root set to default". Debian installer creates the traditional root user and you can just log in as root, if you know the password. However, propably the most common method for performing administrative tasks (but nothing else) as root is to install sudo, then create a regular user and add that user to the "sudo" group. Often, this user is employed for daily operations as well, but the more secure approach is to establish a separate user specifically for admin tasks. It's a good idea to also make the user a member of groups "adm" and "systemd-journal" to avoid full root privileges when just reading logs.
