SuperUser ID's

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Thu Nov 4 21:51:12 1999

Rumor has it that Zane H. Healy may have mentioned these words:

>Are you talking UID, or login name? Not even sure some of them have
>anything other than a login name.

Login Name, UID, that's fine. Just kind-of wondering how different systems
dealt with superuser ID's/Login Names, and I made a trivia question out of
Unix's superuser UID for it. I was on the topic, so I thought I'd try to
find a few trivia facts about other classic OS's.

Yes, it was an open-ended question, and while I might have worded it a bit
confusing (sorry about that,) I did want it somewhat broad and vague.

>OpenVMS:
>Username: SYSTEM Owner: SYSTEM MANAGER
>Account: SYSTEM UIC: [1,4] ([SYSTEM])
>
>However, under OpenVMS it's possible to set up another account so it's
>effectivally the SYSTEM account.
>
>At least some Harris Mini's used 'SuperVulcan', I always thought that cool.

Thanks, and that is really cool!

>The key word is that a lot of OS's aren't as stupid about security as UNIX
>tends to be.

Having just installed FrontPage 2000 on WinNT, *nix is looking a *lot*
better about security right about now... ;-) [[ Of course, with OS-9 you
don't log in if you're at the console. It's assumed that since you knew how
to boot the box, you were automatically the superuser. I once tried (and
moderatly succeeded) to write a program to change the userID of the console
login on the fly (thru Basic-09), mainly so Rogue wouldn't overwrite the
saved files. *Yes*, I did know how to attr the file for read-only, but this
was one of those "just how crazy can I get about this and still have it
work" exercises. :-) Learned a lot about OS-9 system calls, which was the
main point. ]]

Thanks,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   ---   sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right???  Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
Received on Thu Nov 04 1999 - 21:51:12 GMT

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