login as root

neopium

Registered
Hi everybody !
I have a question that could look stupid but I nerver found any answer... I would like to log as root, but I don't know how to do it... In the xterm, when I do "su root" I'm asked for a password and my administrator password doesnt work.
Thanx
 
to be logged in as root, you will need to enable the root user. Apple and many people who know what they are doing recommend that you never do this and since I like to pretend I know what I'm doing, I am going to agree.

You should be able to do everything in sudo. If you want to be super user, type sudo su and you should be able to run things (even in gui) with root privileges.

There was a rant somewhere on here about a guy who enabled root and used it as his main account and then all these programs stopped working (like iTunes) and he called up Apple and they basicly hung up on him because it was just a case of him trying to do stuff he shouldn't be doing without knowing the consequences. iTunes had broken because instead of using the user ~/Library, it was accessing /Library for root.

Also, by enabling root, a hacker doesn't have to guess your user name, he know's he can get full control by using root and guessing the password.

I don't want to sound all high and mighty because honestly, I don't have a clue if all these paranoid *nix people are right. There is obviously a reason root is there, but until I know enough to prove these so called experts wrong, I'm going to trust them. :)
 
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