phpbbDoctor
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 269
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 Subject: [Advice] Don't log in as Administrator
Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:41 pm |
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If you only read the title for this topic you're going to be very confused.  But the advice is certainly sound. Here's what it boils down to.
We can't tell you how many boards we've seen where the administrator account is used to do casual posting on the board. We don't mean the occasional announcement or informative post (like this one, perhaps) but everyday posts. In short, the administrator account is being used as a user. Bad idea.
Most systems provide some sort of "god-level" account. On *nix systems that user is root. Windows systems have an administrator account. Do you log in as "root" for casual use of your server? Hopefully not.  Since there are no restrictions on what root can do, it is quite easy to do rm -r in the wrong place and really mess things up.
While we are not trying to say that a phpBB administrator account is as powerful as root, the principals are the same. It is just considered a bad practice to use your administrator account for casual system use. And it goes beyond the permissions issue. What if you eventually turn your board over to someone else?
If you have used the administrator account for casual use as well as general board announcements, then your personal posting history is mixed in with official board business. And there's really no way to extract that, not easily anyway. So what you're left with is confusion.
On boards that we manage we always set up the administrator account for administrative purposes. We set up individual accounts for each user. Those users might have moderator status, but will never have administrator access. By doing this we separate out personal activity from board ownership. And that's really the most appropriate thing to do.
Is it required? Of course not. It's just a bit of advice from the phpBB Doctor.  |
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