Disable Direct Root Login
May 16, 2007
I tried to disable direct root login but had to struggle to find step-by-step instructions and have written the steps one needs to follow to disable direct root login.
This is an additional security measure where we prevent direct root logins and instead create a user to login and then use a command ‘su –‘ to gain root privileges.
The only risk in this procedure is that you may prevent root login but forget to add the user to the wheel group - effectively locking yourself out of the system.
Follow the steps below and you will not face a problem.
STEP 1: Let us create a user and add it to the wheel group.
For e.g. we want to create a user neonix and give him root privileges.
SSH into your server as root and follow the below commands to create a user.
groupadd neonix
useradd neonix –gneonix
passwd neonix
enteryouruserpasswordhere
verifyyouruserpasswordhere
// Please note -g in the second line
// You can replace neonix with any username of your choice.
STEP 2: Add user to wheel group.
Use your browser to Login to your WHM panel and click on Manage Wheel Group Users.
You will see the user you just added (neonix). Select the user and click ‘Add to group’.
You will see that the user has been added –
Users Currently in the wheel group root,neonix
You have successfully added a user to the 'wheel' group who will be able to 'su -' to root.
LOGOUT OF SSH
Before we disable root login, let us check if the user can login and su – to gain root privileges.
SSH into your server as 'neonix'
Login as: neonix
Password : enteryouruserpasswordhere
su –
password: enter root password here
You have successfully logged in and have root privileges. Now let us disable root login.
STEP 3: Disable Direct Root Login
(The below steps are from webhostgear.com)
1. Copy and paste this line to edit the file for SSH logins
pico -w /etc/ssh/sshd_config
2. Find the line
Protocol 2, 1
3. Uncomment it (Remove #) and change it to look like
Protocol 2
4. Next, find the line
PermitRootLogin yes
5. Uncomment it (Remove #) and make it look like PermitRootLogin no
6. Save the file Ctrl+X then Y then enter
7. Now you can restart SSH
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sshd restart
Now, no one will be able to login to root with out first logging in as 'neonix' and 'su -' to root, and you will be forcing the use of a more secure protocol.
Just make sure you remember both passwords!
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Oct 24, 2009
im able to login to root via SU perfectly
One problem: All my old files and folders are owned by ROOT so that means my SU account named XXX cant edit/add/delete anything from my SFTP because of folder/file permission.
Is there anyway my SUDO(wheel) account can still edit these files own by ROOT?
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Apr 16, 2008
login as: hen
hen@xx.xx.xx.xx's password:
Last login:
hen@root [~]# su -
Password:
su: incorrect password
I verified that root password is correct, but no matter how many times I tried, I can't su in
Where's my su permission
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24060 Mar 22 2007 /bin/su*
here's inside /etc/group
wheel:x:10:root,hen
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Jul 3, 2008
Currently I have a server that has direct root SSH access disabled (have to login as regular user then su to root), but I am currently working on setting up authentication via SSH keys, but I can't seem to get it working with direct root SSH access disabled? Is this normal, and if so is there anyway to work around it?
Basically I'd like to be able to authenticate both ways; both with SSH keys or by logging in as a regular user and su to root.
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Oct 18, 2009
Meaning you can't use the user root to login to WHM.
Is that possible?
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Jan 24, 2007
I use a login script on my hosting site. and i was wondering if there was any way or any program that would allow me to Block people from going mydomain.com then cpanel?
And forcing them to go to my site to use the cpanel login script on my website?
Im sure that if there was a way to disable Cpanel login it would aslo block the scipt on my site.
Is there a solution to my little perdicament here?
Any software or scripts that do what im looking for?
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Aug 15, 2007
I was worry about which is more seucre to login to the server
disabling the direct login and using the public key (ssh-dss) with 2084 bit length ?
or use the direct login?
and if the public key is more secure , should we use passphrase when generating the key? or no?
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May 21, 2009
i have added
<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
UserDir public_html
</IfModule>
and restart apache. but not work
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May 15, 2007
I'm Running (just) Direct Admin On a Centos 4.3
Due to a typo at the comand line as Root, ive manages to change the owner ship of unknown mounts of files.
The command that was processed (Before it was complete)
chown -R reseller:reseller /
I managed to stop the process ctr+c
and these were the last files to see fly past.
The last one in the list is where it stopped at.
Code:
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11566/task/11566': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11566/task/11566/fd/0': No such device or address
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11566/fd/0': No such device or address
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572/task/11572': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572/task/11572/fd/4': No such file or directory
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572/task/11572/cwd': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572/fd/4': No such file or directory
chown: changing ownership of `/proc/11572/cwd': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/etc/X11/X': No such file or directory
chown: changing ownership of `/dev/core': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of `/usr/local/include/libpng/libpng12':
Too many levels of symbolic links
At the moment the server is still running and it seems only to be log in issues with Direct admin. All user / reseller / Admin accounts can no longer log in.
Error after logging in : Unable to determine Usertype user.conf needs to be repaired
No images or nothing
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Apr 18, 2007
We have linux server + apache
How to disable login via FTP for schedule time?
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Dec 11, 2008
can not login root from SSH, LT suggest me to do KVM over IP
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May 28, 2009
Is it possible to disable direct root login on Cpanel servers?
if yes, please how.
If not, what would be the best to do to secure 'root' account.
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Jan 23, 2008
We have an internal server running Red Hat 8 or 9 that was taken offline at least 18 months ago. The guy who set up the box is long gone. Unfortunately with him went the root password. It wasn't a big deal until we realized there is some code we do want to get off of that box now that may be useful in a future project. In particular the database structure for one project. Is there any way to get access to this data or is it just lost?
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Nov 30, 2014
I would like my clients only to be able to access Plesk Panels from a certain domain, instead all from or with all the domains hosted on our server, is there a way to accomplish that?
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Jun 3, 2009
Want to be notified instantly when someone logs into my server as root With date time & local IP address
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Aug 1, 2007
i can not login to my decated server by using root. the password is not correct.. becasue i did something wrong with my server. i used chmod 777 -R /public_hmtl and chown to modify my server. and i can not login anymore, LT asked me to reload my server, do i need to reload it?
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Feb 8, 2015
Is it possible to disable to root login to the panel? I do not mean the SSH login.
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Nov 4, 2014
One failure cited by a recent PCI compliance report was that of the Plesk non-https login at port 8880. I believe we can resolve this by adding a firewall rule to block access to this port but wanted to check first if this will have any negative consequences elsewhere. Or is there a better way to achieve PCI compliance on this point?
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Jun 8, 2009
I want to have an email alert everytime someone login into my server using ROOT user.
The server is based on Linux system.
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Mar 12, 2015
Any way to backup every SQL Databases at once ?
At the moment i need to configure each subscription on my backup program to backup each sql database.
there is any way to set a login that back's up all the databases?
And for the ftp files?
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Apr 3, 2015
During the installation of Plesk, at first it used the root password, and then had me create an "admin" user.
When I log in using either I don't see any difference in the UI or options. Is there a difference or a reason to use one over the other?
Or is it just to give someone access to admin Plesk without giving them full root password of the server itself?
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