Re^2: Continuous or timed?

"I am using the default pi account which I believe is the RPi equivalent to root."

That's an incorrect assumption.

Raspbian, the OS of the Raspberry Pi, which is Linux, creates the pi user account, and it's the default standard user. root is the super user account. You execute commands as root using sudo. It's highly unlikely that with what you're doing, you need super user access. Don't use super user access except when absolutely necessary, and use the super user account for as short a duration as possible.

Comment on Re^2: Continuous or timed? Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: Continuous or timed? by Bod (Parson) on Dec 14, 2020 at 23:55 UTC
Do I need to change the password of `root` to prevent malicious access as the device will be, and currently is, connected to the internet or is it inaccessible anyway? I guess not as I haven't been prompted like I was with `pi`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Continuous or timed? by stevieb (Canon) on Dec 15, 2020 at 00:35 UTC
The root user in Raspbian has no password; therefore it is inherently secure. Clear as mud, eh? ;) It's set up in a special way so that A) the root user has no login access and is only available via sudo, and B) so long as your pi user has a good password (or SSH key access only), then you're golden, as the pi user is by default the only user allowed to sudo. If you set a root password, then you've opened up an attack vector, as the root user will then have login access.	[reply]