Chapter 16. Being Root

Up to now, we’ve been addressing Unix tools and tips that you, as a normal user of the system, can take advantage of. And, as a normal user, you can’t hurt the system as a whole—you can mess up your own files, certainly, but that’s as far as it goes. As we’ve mentioned, though, there’s also a different class of user, called “superuser” or root. The root user has complete power within the system and can (must) handle configuration issues, software installation for everyone using the system, and troubleshooting. The root user can also easily wreck the system with a single tpyo. Thorough coverage of system administration and being root is out of the scope of this book (look for the sequel, Unix Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide), but it’s important to have some tools in your arsenal. In this chapter, we’ll give you some very basic tools to use as root.