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Why the need for sudo when I have only one account on machine?

rated 0 times [ 4] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 2692 / 2 Years ago, mon, march 28, 2022, 1:46:52

Possible Duplicate:

Why is it bad to run as root?

I am bit confused about the need for sudo when I have a single user account set up on my machine. At install time I tried to call the name of my account 'root' which I was not allowed to do. So I used another name, but I still don't understand why certain actions are blocked and why password verification is needed on updates etc.

I can understand this if there are multiple accounts on a machine and some users are set up without certain access privileges but on a single account what is the need for this? It seems pointless that I can login not as root but perform actions that require root privilege just by entering my password.

If all users can do this, what is the distinction between root access and other users access??? Am I missing something here?

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mouedi

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4 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago dileble · Accepted Answer

You should think of yourself as not one user, but two:

Doing all your normal day to day usage of the machine

The administrator

As an administrator, you can carry out tasks which could damage data if you made a mistake. Also, if you are running as administrator and you connect to a malicious website that exploits your user account, the attacker could have your root privileges. If you are compromised when you are just running as a normal user, it is harder for an attacker to escalate to root.

So it's really about safety, from accidental or malicious incidents.

General rule - run as least privilege wherever possible