Linux question on Permissions?

Question

Im going over my notes on Linux (Ubuntu) for my college exam when i though of a question. I know you can limit and restrict users from accessing certin files or action, but what if that user need root privileges for a task? Can you limit certin users root privileges? say you can give user1 root privileges to install programs and such but you dont want him/her to be able to view the /etc/shadow file while he is root? Can you block the shadow file while user1 is root?

Thanks for your time

What stops user1 from totally messing up user2 account changing his password deleting ther files ect. If we had something of this nature we could grant root access to complete tasks that need it but limit its power at the same time

Is this the point of "sudo" ?

Answer 1

Yes, you can edit the sudoers file via visudo, to fine tune what users can use sudo and what they can do with the priveledges.



In the above case you could allow user to sudo apt-get, but nothing else



Sudo also logs commands so if someone did mess something up, you can at least tell what.

Answer 2

Never give your root password. use sudo and edit sudoer file. Furthermore, you may also want to chmod files they want to access for permissioning.

Answer 3

You would normally never give anyone Root access for all the reasons you describe....



https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#root_account



Yes that is why you use sudo...



https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#Advantages_and_Disadvantages