great cornholio

In Unix-like computer OSes (such as Linux), root is the conventional name of the user who has all rights or permissions (to all files and programs) in all modes (single- or multi-user). Alternative names include baron in BeOS and avatar on some Unix variants. BSD often provides a toor ("root" written backward) account in addition to a root account.
Regardless of the name, the superuser always has a user ID of 0. The root user can do many things an ordinary user cannot, such as changing the ownership of files and binding to network ports numbered below 1024.