* [TUHS] Why root user name?
@ 2015-09-16 19:50 Warren Toomey
2015-09-16 20:11 ` John Cowan
2015-09-17 11:14 ` arnold
0 siblings, 2 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: Warren Toomey @ 2015-09-16 19:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
As I was dropping off to sleep last night, I wondered why the superuser
account on Unix is called root.
There's a hierarchy of directories and files beginning at the tree root /.
There's a hierarchy of processes rooted with init. But there's no hierarchy
of users, so why the moniker "root"?
Any ideas?
Cheers, Warren
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Why root user name?
2015-09-16 19:50 [TUHS] Why root user name? Warren Toomey
@ 2015-09-16 20:11 ` John Cowan
2015-09-17 11:14 ` arnold
1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: John Cowan @ 2015-09-16 20:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
Warren Toomey scripsit:
> There's a hierarchy of directories and files beginning at the tree root /.
> There's a hierarchy of processes rooted with init. But there's no hierarchy
> of users, so why the moniker "root"?
Either because / was root's home directory (until /root was invented),
or because only root could typically write /. If anybody remembers otherwise,
they are not talking.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org
Andrew Watt on Microsoft: Never in the field of human computing has so
much been paid by so many to so few! (pace Winston Churchill)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Why root user name?
2015-09-16 19:50 [TUHS] Why root user name? Warren Toomey
2015-09-16 20:11 ` John Cowan
@ 2015-09-17 11:14 ` arnold
1 sibling, 0 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: arnold @ 2015-09-17 11:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> As I was dropping off to sleep last night, I wondered why the superuser
> account on Unix is called root.
>
> There's a hierarchy of directories and files beginning at the tree root /.
> There's a hierarchy of processes rooted with init. But there's no hierarchy
> of users, so why the moniker "root"?
>
> Any ideas?
From BWK:
> Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 05:35:30 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Brian Kernighan <bwk at CS.Princeton.EDU>
> To: arnold at skeeve.com
> Subject: Re: why the name "root" for userid 0?
>
> I will speculate, without knowledge, that it's because the
> super user can access the files in the root directory.
>
> Ken would know, though perhaps not answer...
>
> Brian
Maybe some of the former BTLers could ask him? :-)
Thans,
Arnold
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