I have a few Linux servers at home that I regularly remote into in order to manage, usually logged into KDE Plasma as root. Usually they just have several command line windows and a file manager open (I personally just find it more convenient to use the command line from a remote desktop instead of directly SSH-ing into the system), but if I have an issue, I’ve just been absentmindedly searching stuff up and trying to find solutions using the preinstalled Firefox instance from within the remote desktop itself, which would also be running as root.
I never even thought to install uBlock Origin on it or anything, but the servers are all configured to use a PiHole instance which blocks the vast majority of ads. However, I do also remember using the browser in my main server to figure out how to set up the PiHole instance in the first place, and that server also happens to be the most important one and is my main NAS.
I never went on any particularly shady websites, but I also don’t remember exactly which websites I’ve been on as root, though I do seem to remember seeing ads during the initial pihole setup, because it didn’t go very smoothly and I was searching up error messages trying to get it to work.
This is definitely on me, but it never crossed my mind until recently that it might be a bad idea to use a browser as root, and searching online everyone just states the general cybersecurity doctrine to never do it (which I’m now realizing I shouldn’t have) but no one seems to be discussing how risky it actually is. Shouldn’t Firefox be sandboxing every website and not allowing anything to access the base system? Between “just stop doing it” and “you have to reinstall the OS right now there’s probably already a virus on there,” how much danger do you suppose I’m in? I’m mainly worried about the security/privacy of my personal data I have stored on the servers. All my servers run Fedora KDE Spin and have Intel processors if that makes a difference?
It’s not about someone sniffing your passwords, it’s about reducing your attack surface. If you use su then the entire session has root privileges and any piece of software you run could do system level damage if it has a bug. Using sudo limits the privilege escalation to just one command.
That is only really true of you use sudo with a zero second password caching timeout.
You seem to be looking at the issue in black and white. Any reduction in root access is beneficial. Using sudo with password cache lasting an hour is still preferable to signing in as root. As many people have said, it’s about minimizing attack surface
Such as having fewer users who are allowed to use sudo to become root and whose compromise can thus lead to a root compromise?
Running fewer commands as root is more significant risk reduction than having an extra user. I won’t be replying further since I’m simply repeating what others have already said. If you sincerely don’t understand, I suggest doing additional research on your own.
You people don’t seem to grasp that I am already not running any commands on the server as root that do not require root. This is all about administrative tasks.
Not true. While you won’t always have to enter your password, not every command will have elevated rights.
The vast majority of commands when debugging actual issues on the system or performing administrative tasks do require root. Out of the others some give you incomplete results when called as a regular user and 90% of the rest shouldn’t be run on the server in the first place if you can avoid it but directly on your client computer (e.g. looking up documentation).