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Zuhaib
Asked: 2010-11-04 23:05:25 +0800 CST

Removing default "ubuntu" user from Ubuntu Install on EC2

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I am playing around with Amazons EC2 new free tier plan and noticed the default ubuntu install comes with a user ubuntu that is preconfigured to work with your key you are provided from AWS. One thing I would like to do is add a new user and remove the default "ubuntu" user. From my experience with other VPS (VMWare and Rackspace cloud) you only have root on your fresh install (tho that is with Red Hat and not Ubuntu).

Should I have any problems removed the default ubuntu user?

Or should I just not touch the user "ubuntu" and create a new user for my to login and do my work.

ubuntu amazon-ec2

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Of course you can remove the ubuntu user, just make sure that the new user you created is able to sudo, etc..

    All in all it doesn't really matter what your users are called. Services like cloudwatch also don't log into your instance to gain vitals. The instance is a virtual environment, what Amazon exposes is available to them from the host system.

    Also, I don't see this user as a security hole -- by contrast, it was added to the Ubuntu AMIs because every other AMI allows you to login with root. That's more of a security issue. ;-)

    Further more, the account is protected with a private key so I don't see an issue here unless your private key is compromised. In which case you should generate a new pair on the AWS console.

    If you really want another login, you could try to rename it: usermod -l NEWNAME ubuntu

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  2. Go ahead and create yourself a new user. Just make sure to put that user in the "admin" group and test logging in as that user before you blow away the 'ubuntu' user.

    I haven't found any reason to keep the ubuntu user, and it strikes me as a potential security hole.

    It's possible that you're cutting yourself off from other AWS tools like Cloud Watch or something else that expects the AWS sitekey to allow you to login to the box, but I don't use those services.

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