On 11/21/2014 08:11 AM, P J P wrote:
Hello,
Sshd(8) daemon by default allows remote users to login as root.
1. Is that really necessary?
The original bug report [1] was kept opened mainly due to the lack of
adding user functionality in anaconda. This is no more true, anaconda
has ability to add an user although it's not enforced.
[1]
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=89216
2. Lot of users use their systems as root, without even creating a
non-root user.
Such practices need to be discouraged, not allowing remote root login could be
useful in that.
There are several use cases when local non-root users are not needed at
all as others already pointed out.
The change itself is simple however the problem is more complex overall.
Here are some thoughts I have about the change:
- administrators are alerted when they use weak password for root by
anaconda
- Fedora Workstation and Live installations don't enable sshd.service
- even if the default was 'PermitRootLogin without-password' you would
need to inject an ssh key and when you are able to inject a key, you are
able to change the default configuration
- I personally use several Fedora systems without non-root users in
local network.
- default sudoers uses password of an user for authentication, so even
when I have a non-root user in wheel group, I only need one user's
password to become root
- how much users of these enforced users will be 'user' or 'test'?
Petr
--
Petr Lautrbach