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sleeper
Asked: 2017-11-24 17:41:17 +0800 CST

Do I need to create a new user on my local Linux box?

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I'm pretty much brand spanking new to Linux. I have a bit of experience on Digital Ocean but now I'm trying to go deep. I've just configured my local machine with Ubuntu 16.04 (desktop, not server) and now I'm ready to install a LAMP stack.

On DigitalOcean they advise that I

  • create a new user with sudo privileges (which i did) and
  • to disable the root account (also did)

but do I NEED to do this on my local system?

I don't have a clue (yet) about "best practices" (esp. for local box), so I thought I'd ask.

root

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Ubuntu is set up from the start to have root disabled with no possibilities for root to log in. The only way to become root is by using sudo or polkit.

    It might be a clever idea in some cases to create a secondary user for the LAMP stack but its not mandatory needed if you only plan to use it as development platform which you mostly will only access locally.

    You might want to look into usage via VM (KVM/qemu, Virtualbox, VMWare) or other container formats like docker and co.

    This would give you the ability to have a real server environment running and more fine grained access controls, as well the option to shut the server down in the times you not need it.

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