On Feb 5, 2008, at 12:37 PM, Erik Anderson wrote:

> On Feb 5, 2008 12:16 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu>  
> wrote:
>>
>> Is there really no root account?  On our Ubuntu system there is one:
>
> Yes, there is a root account.  It just doesn't have a password by
> default.  It's quite easy to set the root password if you want to -
> just run:
>
> $ sudo passwd root
>
>> What is the advantage of sudo over su?  Does it log activity better?
>
> Yes, sudo logs all commands that are run through it.  su doesn't.


This is slightly misguided.  Even with sudo, you can sudo su <user>  
and where the su to <user> will be logged, anything done while su'd is  
not logged.  Only commands invoked directly with sudo are logged.  In  
this case, logging is no better than it is with su.

-----
Eric F Crist
Secure Computing Networks