On Saturday, November 2, 2019 5:56:53 AM EDT Tim via users wrote:
On Fri, 2019-11-01 at 12:38 -0400, Garry Williams wrote:
> The root user cannot set whatever password he wants on his machine?
> Since when?
>
> I wanted to assign a temporary password for a new user and then do
>
> sudo passwd -e ppatel
>
> to force it to be changed. For the new user, enforcing password
> complexity is, I guess, OK. But for root?
If any user should need the enforcement of good passwords, it's the
root user. If your PC was on a LAN where crackers can have a go at
you, this could be very important. It does not take long for someone
to mess up a system if they can get in. It's better to be safe than
sorry. To me the obvious thing is to simply pick a better password.
e.g. Just make it two words long instead of one.
I was setting a (temporary) password for another user -- not setting
the root password.
But I guess your comment helps me to understand why these changes
happen. I cannot be trusted to operate my machine safely without
someone else's help. I may harm myself, so I am not allowed to set a
(temporary) password to whatever I want.
I probably shouldn't be allowed to type the rm command without some
sort of "are you sure?" warning either.
Sigh.
--
Garry T. Williams