UGN Security Forums UGN Security: Knowledge Base Operating Systems *nix & *nix Security Deleting the root user

Well, I never would have guessed this to be possible, but on redhat 7.3, it is possible to delete the root user account.

One of the guys in my class used the user manager in kde to delete the root user account. Now, there seems to be now way to put it back, or to get into the root only areas of the filesystem. I would have thought that there would have been safeguards in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Have any of you ever heard of thins kind of thing before? And if so, is there any way to fix it. I don't care about fixing buddy's comp, but the fact that he did this has got me interested.

sum

Hmm putting it back good question, prob means just re-tracing the steps. Can it be done well, now you know. Yeah I knew of it, is it worth it? I don't think so. The last resort way to bring it back is reinstall the *nix or update it. Check out www.linux.com or www.linux.org look around. Thousands of places to search.

If you have a recovery disk then boot from it, mount the hard dive and re-write the root account into the password and shadow password files. You will want to make sure it still has a home directory (/root) also.

If you don't have a recovery disk then boot off a linux distro on a CD. A few small distros are:

http://lbt.linuxcare.com/
http://trinux.sourceforge.net/
http://www.lnx-bbc.org/

I was thinking that would prolly be the way to do it. Thnx Energy.

sum

Just goes to show how powerful linux root really is, it is GOD of the operating system and can thus do anything. That is why it is advised that when you install the os it gives warnings that root can do anything.

Regards,

Skull

EDITED BY: SilentRage

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