On 11/21/2014 08:11 AM, P J P wrote:
Hello,Sshd(8) daemon by default allows remote users to login as root.
- 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
- 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