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I usually use Debian-derivative distributions such as Ubuntu server. Most of them come pre-configured to use sudo rather than su and to prevent access to the root account at all possible.

With this in mind, should root have a shell in /etc/passwd? If I cannot login as root, does it make sense to give root a real shell?

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I'm not entirely sure but I think there's a fair chance that many cronscripts which run as root will break if they don't have a valid shell. –  Teun Vink Dec 5 '13 at 6:00

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Normally one would need a shell, e.g. when logging in directly on the console, or in single user mode. Install a test system in a virtual machine and try it out?

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