why can't root level access do everything root account can do?

newbiesforever · 09-21-2008, 08:24 PM

I noticed, not for the first time, that there are some operations that root level access isn't good enough for; I apparently musy be in the root account to do them.

For instance, I was just trying to copy some files from /home on my current distro, MEPIS 7, to /home on my PCLOS partition, and even as root--I was in the superuser Konqueror profile--I wasn't allowed to. Only once logged into the root account could I do it. Why? And can I change that?

CRC123 · 09-21-2008, 08:29 PM

I dunno how the superuser account works in Konqueror, but it may be easier to just use the 'su' command in a regular terminal and then use the 'cp' command to copy things:

Code:

su
# or
su - # if the above doesn't work

# then
cp <file or directory location> <file or directory destination>

reading the man pages on either one of those commands will help.

trickykid · 09-21-2008, 08:47 PM

Use sudo, don't su and don't login as root unless you completely have to in case of some disaster or recovery attempt.

newbiesforever · 09-21-2008, 10:26 PM

What if I don't feel like using the command prompt? I have to get over it? I don't know how to sudo anything in Konqueror or elsewhere in the GUI. I thought using the superuser profile in Konqueror would take care of that for me; it didn't, at least not for what I tried to do.

pixellany · 09-21-2008, 11:00 PM

In a terminal, "su" gives you root powers, but not root's environment. Thus, some commands might not be in PATH.
To get root's environment, use "su -".

newbiesforever · 09-21-2008, 11:06 PM

Thanks, those two posts answered my question.

r3sistance · 09-22-2008, 10:02 AM

I would be wary of staying in root for too long. Generally some commands alias's maybe missing as stated above but really the safer way is to stick with sudo and just recreate or copy the alias's you want over... su - doesn't automatically log you out after say 5 minutes unlike sudo what if not used for 5 minutes will re-request the password, so sudo is the safer way to do things... generally speaking it's not much of an issue for a machine only you use but if your on a public or shared machine it can become a huge issue.