On Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:58:17 +0800, TheSaint wrote: >> os.geteuid > This return 0 for *root* . I don't know if it's a standard for all distro. UID 0 is the "superuser". The name "root" is conventional, but it's the EUID (effective UID) which is used in permission checks; the kernel doesn't care about names.