Question
Question about disabling direct root logins
- Posted on July 18, 2022
- DigitalOcean DropletsLinux CommandsSecurity
Asked by swadams
I know it’s a recommended security practice to disable directly logging in as root, and I have another account on the system that can use the “sudo” command when needed, but I have a concern about availability. If I do this and for some reason become unable to log in with the other account, will the recovery console and/or resetting the root password still work?
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Hi @swadams,
No, the recovery console and resetting the password work only for your root user. Having said that, through your root user you can enter your other newly created user.
Think of the root user as the Administrator account in windows. From this account, you can do anything. First, in order to enter the newly created account, let’s say it’s name is exampleuser, you need to add your SSH key to it. In the exampleuser home directory, you need to create a .ssh folder and then a file called authorized_keys. In that file you need to add your id_rsa.pub key as a line.
Now, if you want to access this user - exampleuser through root, it’s really easy, you need to enter into your root user and type in:
This will switch the user to exampleuser for you.