Change root user name? possible?

[Charles Swiger]

On Aug 25, 2004, at 6:50 PM, Ara Avvali wrote:
> Sorry if this might sound crazy, but is there anyway to rename root 
> account
> to something else for extra security?

Why, yes, you can rename root.  Use vipw.  If you setup sudo properly, 
you can even run a system without any valid uid=0 users existing at 
all, although it would be safer to simply give root a password of "*", 
which disables password-based logins but leaves the account present.

Whether this gains you much security is another question entirely, and 
you risk breaking single-user mode and various low-level pieces of 
software which expect root to exist, but it can be done.

[MacOS X ships without root enabled, for example.]

-- 
-Chuck