Secure access
Use personal admin accounts
Give each administrator an attributable account, use sudo for privileged work, and remove access when responsibilities change.
8 minute lesson
Shared accounts hide who changed the system. Give each administrator their own login.
Use an unprivileged account for normal work and sudo only for the command that needs it. Review group membership and sudo rules. Keep service accounts non-interactive unless a documented task requires a shell.
When three people share ubuntu, a sudo event cannot identify who changed Nginx. Personal accounts add lifecycle work, but let you remove one person without rotating everyone’s access.
Keep one independently protected recovery identity outside normal daily use. Review its access too, because an emergency account that never expires can become the least visible administrator.
Save a list of login shells, groups, and effective sudo permissions for each administrator. Disable one test account and prove its SSH key and sudo path both fail while another administrator still has recovery access.
Lesson completed