Linux – Managing Multiple Sysadmins Working as Root

linuxroot

In our team we have three seasoned Linux sysadmins having to administer a few dozen Debian servers. Previously we have all worked as root using SSH public key authentication. But we had a discussion on what is the best practice for that scenario and couldn't agree on anything.

Everybody's SSH public key is put into ~root/.ssh/authorized_keys2

  • Advantage: easy to use, SSH agent forwarding works easily, little overhead
  • Disadvantage: missing auditing (you never know which "root" made a change), accidents are more likely

Using personalized accounts and sudo

That way we would login with personalized accounts using SSH public keys and use sudo to do single tasks with root permissions. In addition we could give ourselves the "adm" group that allows us to view log files.

  • Advantage: good auditing, sudo prevents us from doing idiotic things too easily
  • Disadvantage: SSH agent forwarding breaks, it's a hassle because barely anything can be done as non-root

Using multiple UID 0 users

This is a very unique proposal from one of the sysadmins. He suggest to create three users in /etc/passwd all having UID 0 but different login names. He claims that this is not actually forbidden and allow everyone to be UID 0 but still being able to audit.

  • Advantage: SSH agent forwarding works, auditing might work (untested), no sudo hassle
  • Disadvantage: feels pretty dirty – couldn't find it documented anywhere as an allowed way

What would you suggest?

Best Answer

The second option is the best one IMHO. Personal accounts, sudo access. Disable root access via SSH completely. We have a few hundred servers and half a dozen system admins, this is how we do it.

How does agent forwarding break exactly?

Also, if it's such a hassle using sudo in front of every task you can invoke a sudo shell with sudo -s or switch to a root shell with sudo su -

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