I need to change the root password on a few Suse Servers. I have the current root password, but the IT guy has left and I need to update it.

Can this be done through SSH (Putty) or do I have to do this at the physical machine? Also, when changing this password, do i need to alter or update any of the services running on that server?

Thanks.

If you can login as root (note: on SSH this should be prevented; use su or sudo instead) of course you can change the password, with
run as root. I don't think SSH prevents that by default (then again, I see no reason why it could not be prevented).

Also I don't think you need to do anything else; the services running as root are usually setup by root to do that, so it should be enough to just change the password. I know on Windows you change a password for user, you need to go and re-change that for every service that needs password; it sucks.

Thank you. That was easy. I've been reading all kinds of complicated ways of changing the root password or various ways or recovering the root password. This was simple. I like that.

Now, from a security standpoint.....

Should it be this easy?

Thanks.

That is more than adequate security.

ssh is an encrypted connection, so it is secure.
If you know the root password and can login, changing the password
should not require jumping through hoops.

Just be sure to use a strong password. There are lots of brute-force
attacks for ssh.

R.

After you do change the root password for your servers I'd suggest you look at a few SSH hardening threads to disallow remote root login. Many canned exploits try and exploit bugs in Ssh remotely. If you have remote root enabled the exploit could be successful directly. Here's a start:

http://ale.freeshell.org/les/ssh.html

Post back if I was unclear.

Cheers
Arvind