Hi again everyone! Thanks to ALL that responded to my query on changing the name for the root user. Some very interesting replies indeed! I have a new installation of SuSE 8.1 professional to do ASAP. May try some of your suggestions then, with a clean installation. I'll keep you posted (if you'll pardon the pun!) Thanks again Keith Roberts Surely it would be more difficult for any attacker to break into Linux if they did not know the username for the root account? I just wondered if it was possible to make root logins MUCH more secure with the following suggestions. When a NEW installation of Linux is done, allow the root user to select their -*OWN*- unique username for the root account in YaST, instead of the default 'root' username. Disallow the use of username 'root' for ALL root superuser logins. When a superuser logs-in they provide their unique username that they choose when installing Linux eg. under YaST. Each login program would need to be modified to reject the username of 'root'. The login program then checks say, password file for the unique root alias name (provided by superuser at installation time) and matches this up with the root account. If a matching root alias and a valid password for that alias name are present, then the superuser gets logged into the root account. The root account need not be touched in any way. The superuser alias name is just used as a 'WRAPPER' to protect the username of root for login purposes only. Would this be feasable to implement? This may have been implemented already. If it has - please let me know. Thankyou - Keith Roberts.