Absolute Beginners Guide to Networking (4th Edition)

Another important part of the Red Hat installation is the configuration of the root password. The root account is the equivalent of the administrator account on a Windows server and the admin account on a NetWare server. The root account provides complete access to the Linux settings on the computer and allows you to configure and add services to the server.

Type a password for the root and confirm it. The password that you select should be complex enough that it cannot easily be guessed. After configuring the root password, the GUI installation also gives you the option of creating additional user accounts for use on the computer. Since you should only use the root account to configure the system, you should create at least one typical user account for yourself (and any other accounts that will be needed for users that use the system, which should be minimal in cases where you are configuring a Linux server). Figure 10.3 shows the GUI screen where you enter the root password and create additional user accounts for the system.