this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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    Shit meme, I know.

    top 36 comments
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    [–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago

    sudo su -

    Race conditions are neat.

    [–] jbk@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)
    [–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago

    calm down, Stallman.

    this incident will be reported

    [–] ptz@dubvee.org 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    Not a shit meme at all ! In fact, I want to convert that to ASCII art and have it as the MOTD when I sudo -i or console in as root.

    [–] noctivius@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago

    "I am brute" takes over your linux

    [–] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago
    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Why would you sudo su? That defeats the purpose of sudo.

    [–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

    I use sudo su 'cause I can type it quicker than sudo -i

    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

    Why use the - i?

    I just sudo [command].

    [–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

    -i asks for an interactive session

    I use sudo su because running su with no options also gets you an interactive session without having to type anything but letters and a space

    Both of these are for when you want a session as root which is nearly never necessary, but sometimes it's more convenient that a set of commands preceded by sudo

    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

    I figured out that it just drops you into a root shell, which is a bad thing.

    You should try to never login as root. It's just bad security hygiene.

    I run sudo apt update, put in my password, thenonce my repos are updated, I run sudo apt upgrade. Password only has to be input once, unless I get busy and forget to do the upgrade command, in which case I haven't left a root shell unattended for however long it took me to realize that I left the shell open.

    That way if someone else comes along and tries to do stuff, they only have the limited privilege level that my user does.

    [–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

    It even gets worse - I keep screen sessions open with one screen running root

    Security and convenience balance, and if something has compromised my sudoer account they have root anyway

    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

    if something has compromised my sudoer account they have root anyway

    So instead of making the thief break a window, you would rather just leave the door open?

    [–] ikidd@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    You get tired of playing Simon Says when you're doing a lot of admin stuff at once.

    [–] wurstgulasch3000@feddit.org 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Well then still sudo -s would suffice, no?

    [–] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Yes I have, also it's in the original image. I was strictly talking about sudo usage

    [–] toynbee@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Having a password for root is Ill advised.

    [–] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Maybe I'm a bit ignorant, but would it make much of a difference? Whether I authenticate with my own account to get root permissions or directly with root, I still have a string of characters which I use to get root priveleges on my machine. For a single (physical) user machine, that allows me to use a separate password for root. Should be better than using the same one twice, right?

    [–] toynbee@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    If root has a password, it's only one password; everyone who has root access knows the password, which means that anyone can share it with no accountability. If privilege escalation rights are granted instead, it's easy to see who did what, as well as to contain any kind of compromise (by revoking said rights).

    Also, I think you originally referred to su but sudo allows much more granular control.

    [–] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    So, we are clearly talking about different environments here. Of course I would not have a password for root in an enterprize setting where you have a lot of different people managing one machine. But for your regular desktop computer with one user, it just complicates things needlessly without providing any benefits.

    [–] toynbee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Your home network is certainly less of a security risk due to both being a smaller target and (usually) needing to have fewer services available or ports open, so I would agree with you it's acceptable for security to be more lax. Personally, I don't find sudo to be less convenient than su; it's even saved me from thoughtlessly running a dangerous command a time or two. Also, I try to keep my home network setup close to my work network until doing so gets in the way. If nothing else, this prevents me from getting used to a different way of doing things.

    However, it's your network. If you find that your way works better for you, by all means, configure your system in whatever way seems best to you!

    [–] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

    How did we arrive at networking? I feel like we are on two completely different pages.

    I was talking about your regular end user machines, what we usually call "desktop computers". They are connected to the internet, but I don't have any way to remotely login into those. And I have a single person per computer. There is no need to disable root passwords on these, seeing that Larry executed a command as root won't provide any insight, I know that Larry is the only person who uses the machine. And it can complicate things in a sense that if Larry fatfingers his password three times and gets locked out, I'll have to get into his filesystem somehow and remove tallies manually instead of just logging in as root and doing faillock --reset.

    [–] toynbee@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

    Sorry if I was unclear; what you're saying is kind of my point. A computer without networking can still have risks, but they're a lot lower. The standards of security can change with conditions. If you have a computer on an enterprise network, it should be very secure; if on your home network, more cavalier standards can make sense. If you have a computer without any networking whatsoever, being compromised is not impossible, but it's much less likely unless you're storing something quite extraordinary on the system. That's why I referenced networks while talking about the configured security of an individual system. In general, I believe I was broadly agreeing with you.

    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    If you do multiple admin commands, sudo doesn't prompt for your password. There's some time limit before having to re input it.

    Logging in as root is bad security hygiene. You'll become complacent and leave it logged in at some point. That's how you get pwnd.

    [–] smee@poeng.link 3 points 2 days ago

    I want to know more. Looking past running full desktop sessions as root and inputting stupid commands when sudo su, what's the problem with having a terminal window open and escalated to root?

    [–] unhrpetby@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    There's some time limit before having to re input it.

    Inputting a password multiple times into sudo has downsides too. Larger window for attackers to do something like: add a directory to your path, which has a fake sudo in it, and capture your password.

    [–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

    Depends how it's configured

    [–] dr_robotBones@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    If I ever need to switch to the root user, I usually type su, but I saw someone use sudo su - in a video, which I thought was pretty strange but maybe the video creator knew something I didn't, or it wasn't possible to simply su a few years ago.

    [–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago

    sudo su -

    Fun fact. There HAS been a sploit based on the brief moment you've elevated to root before backing down to another account. This should be avoided, and those using it need ridicule for social correction. It's like people who say 'emails' or 'the ask': just remind them how dumb they are and maybe they'll stop.

    [–] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    I don't know if I'm the only one who ran into this but sometimes sudo just doesn't work and you have too.

    [–] Geodad@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I've been using Debian for the better part of 20 years, and sudo has never not worked.

    [–] Allero@lemmy.today 1 points 21 hours ago

    I've used Debian for like half a year and this happened to me once, and to my buddy once as well.

    Had to su

    But why would someone use sudo to invoke su is out of my understanding.

    [–] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

    I tend to to be working in obscure micro distros inside of docker or servers that should have been retired around the time of the dinosaurs so I am probably alone in this, just saying it can happen.