Sysadmin

We have already discussed the most common options used with du - a tool to check/calculate file space usage. In its most basic form, du tells you the size of all the files in a given directory. Using -s option it sums up the total size of a directory, but what if we don’t want to include a set of files while calculating the utilized space.

So, here is the crazy thing that I have been doing lately - changing the root username! It may seem absurd to some and simple/straightforward to others, but it was one of the most fun and learning times I had with Linux for a long time. In this post, I’ll tell you how I approached the issue and screwed up badly multiple times until I finally got it right.

Before we start, I want you to keep a few things in mind.

So, I learned something important today. When you don't have an Internet access but have still got work to do, may be with a heavy heart, but you eventually end up in a library. As it turns out, reading a howto from a book is fun too. I was looking to do a crazy thing on my system(lets leave that story for some other day ) and while I was looking for something related, I came across a wonderful write up on /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files.

When you use Debian/Ubuntu for a long time, you tend to forget about su and gradually you both grow apart. I witnessed the same thing yesterday. I was working in a lab and my friend asked me, “Why’d you use su -. Why not a simple su!”. I replied, "Duh!" and then sat silently the rest of the time wondering why I couldn't remember a thing about the command which has been hard-coded in my brain all this time while my friend enjoyed the blackout.