Delete built in administration account

I need to hand over the administration of a site to someone else. If I create a new administrator can I then delete the ’built-in administration account? i.e. Me!

Thanks in advance!

Yes.

It would probably be in your favor to keep the account, so that if your "someone else" messes up the site, you’ll still be able to access it.

Even if you don’t ever plan on touching the site again, leave the default administrator and let the end-user delete if they wish.

I see what you are saying about not deleting myself - I’m just concerned that that ’someone else’ may get access to the main username and password for this site. And then I thought well if they are an administrator they could delete me altogether anyway! I’m not being paranoid (who said that! - just trying to thinking of the worst scenario - I give someone full access and then they delete me (by mistake or otherwise) and then everything is lost. Is there a case here for saying that the builder / implementor of a site should maybe have an even higher level of access than ’administrator’?

Quote from: chrisandy at Nov 29, 2007, 06:54 PM

Is there a case here for saying that the builder / implementor of a site should maybe have an even higher level of access than ’administrator’?

There is always at least one admin account, as you can’t be logged in as admin and delete yourself. Creating a higher access level than admin is just moving the same problem to another level.

With access to the mysql database I would say it’s always possible to take over any modx installation, if the admin user/pw is lost for whatever reason. So if you have access to the server, you are already somehow in that position of builder / implementor.

A miscreant could probably break into the admin account you set up for someone else easier than yours since your end user will probably create a weak password regardless of your advice.

Remember that you can change both the password and the name of your admin account. If you use a string that contains random letters, numbers, and punctuation for both, it would take someone years to break in that way given MODx’s lockout after n failed attempts.

Let me recommend Roboform here (http://roboform.com), which will generate, save, and enter, relatively strong random passwords for you. I couldn’t live without it.

Bob

Not even that’s a good enough incentive to make me want to switch to Windows.

http://lifehacker.com/software/security/os-x-password-manager-roundup-117004.php

Like I’m not already miserable enough here in Windows Vista Hell.

Bob, suffering

This is nice, especially if you are a memory-impaired dyslexic like I am, and tend to use the same password for everything...

http://www.passwordmaker.org/

Thanks for all the suggestions - very interesting.

I’ve decided to leave myself as the built-in administrator and change my usernameand password but I get the message:

"Changing the user name can affect other applications that are linked to the Content Manager.
Are you sure you want to change this user name?"

That sounds a bot ominous to me!