able to login as root via ssh :-(

[Don Russell]

Scot L. Harris wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-08-07 at 22:33 -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote:
>   
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>> Don Russell wrote:
>>     
>>>> Why?  Just curious what made you believe it was disabled by default.
>>>>  
>>>>         
>>> Well.... just ignorance on my part.... but ftp doesn't allow me log
>>> in as root, and I don't recall changing that setting. Call it "I
>>> expected any form of remote access to be consistent in denying root
>>> access". Of course they are different programs (ftp server/ssh
>>> server)... and I always see messages that say "... ssh in, then su -
>>> to root...." sort of implies that ssh to root directly won't work.
>>> But again, abad assumption on my part. :-(
>>>       
>> It's not unreasonable to assume the default would be to disable it.
>> I'm sure there have been debates on what the right default should be
>> among the openssh developers.  I didn't mean to pick on you by asking.
>> ;-)
>>     
>
> If I recall correctly from a discussion about this a long time ago, ssh
> has root access enabled by default for those cases where the admin is
> trying to install a system remotely.

[snip]
That seems like a bit of a strawman argument to me.... but I'll concede 
that  I don't know everything. :-)

In order for a remote system to be in a state that remote access is even 
possible, there must be an OS already running.
In order to install the first OS, physical access to the box must be 
required. It has to be physically connected etc. At the very least the 
power has to be turned on.. it might then proceed to do a network 
install...

At that first install time is when a second user id should be created....

Anyway... I don't want to get into a big discussion over something that 
has already been settled.... Might be nice to have a new option in 
sshd_config though: "PermitRootLoginWarn yes", then in my Logwatch 
reports I'll see something like "Warning: root login is permitted via 
ssh - see /etc/ssh/sshd_config"

If the sysadmin really wants that, they can turn the warning off, and 
sysadmins that don't want that can disallow root login.

Bugzilla/suggestion? I'll happily create a bugzilla report for that, or 
am I a little over-the-top? :-)