Q. How do I enable root login under Fedora 10 Gnome GUI login screen / manager?
A. Fedora 10 uses pam module called pam_succeed_if.so. This module is designed to succeed or fail authentication based on characteristics of the account belonging to the user being authenticated. One use is to select whether to load other modules based on this test. This module blocks root login using GUI.
Login as root
Log in as normal user
Then open GUI terminal (bash prompt) and type the following command to become root user:
$ su -
WARNING! These examples may crash your computer if not executed properly. It is recommended that you always login as normal user to avoid any damage to your system and then use su - to get root level access as required.Fedora 10 update GDM config to allow root login
Type your root password. Next, make a backup of /etc/pam.d/gdm, enter:
cp /etc/pam.d/gdm /root
Now open /etc/pam.d/gdm using gedit or vi text editor, enter:
gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm
OR
vi /etc/pam.d/gdm
Alternatively, you can do everything in a one command:
su -c 'gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm'
Find line that read as follows:
auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
Remove or comment out line by prefixing #.
# auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
Save and close the file. Logout from terminal and from GUI itself. Now you should be able login as root user using GDM GUI login manager.
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{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
hi to all
i am ranjith. i want to know which media player will support of all formats of the videos.
i want to install media player of any like VLC or Xine player .
so please help me in this regards. which software will support for my requirements.
i am using FEDORA 10 & RHEL 5 also.
Isthere any site for Learningof Unix administration. please help me.
i am working as a windows system admin as well as RHEL Desktop Engineer.
I did the above, found I could log in, but I still was unable to use all the gui commands that were important, these commands block themselves when they recognize the logon as root as opposed to a sudo user.
Someone has hard coded stuff that should be parameterized.
Hi,
It will be nice if you explain what’s happening inside when you doing this? What’s that pam.d and gdm?
Thanks
PAM is used to control authentication for each service.
GDM is login manager and service for Fedora 10 and /etc/pam.d/gdm login configuration for GDM.
pam_succeed_if.so module is used to test account characteristics. In this example, it blocks root user from login into the system. This is done using condition.
HTH
It is recommended that you always login as normal user to avoid any _dmage_ to your system and then use su – to get root level access as required.
Thanks Mr. Vivek for the hint about root login. It saved my time. I was about to reinstall F10
Thanks for this excellent guide ! Worked perfectly…
@marco:
recommended, maybe, desirered no…For me Linux has always been an OS which left decisions like this to the USER not the OS/Develloper.
I like to be logged in as root, and if i want to trash my system being that, it is up to me and me alone…
The lack of any sane way to configure the login screen (GDM) in Fedora 10 is just so mindboogingly stupid that I just want to weep.
I regret upgrading from Fedora 6 to 10. The sound disapperared as I upgraded the kernel on Fedora 10 to the newest kernel. Honestly, it feels like redhat/Fedora is trying to push me back to windows after having used Linux since 1998.
thanks a lot!!
thanx for this solution..
what i am not able to understand about pam and gdm?
That worked! Thanks.
Hello..
I’ve multi-booted my laptop with Fedora 10 and Vista. the problr is that when I try to login as root, it doesn’t let me do. And through kernel it accepts the password and lets me login as a root.
I logged in as Dharmit Shah(another user account that I’ve created). Then in the terminal I typed
su
and gave the root password that it asked for. It went successfuly at that time. Can you help me out to log in as a root from the boot up itself? Thanks in advance….!!!
very fine
dear Vivek Sir,
thank you very much for this very useful information or otherwise i was about to reinstall the fedora10,
hi,
im new to fedora…. i installed fedora 10. while installing my mouse pointer is invisible and i used keyboard to select NEXT,,, NEXT…. while installing.
Please helpme out… what shud i do to get visible mouse pointer with step by step procedure …..
You can do that without any changes aswel.
Just open another terminal
login as root
them type
startx — :3
Easy …..
If your system don’t have enough memory to run 2 x windows just kill the first.
Its not very wise to use your system always as root but if you really need …
Leoaraujo79@gmail.com
Thanks man…..That worked!!!
Hi I had had the same problem “Fedora 10 Enable GUI Root Login”. but its working now properly.
Thanks for you.
Thiyagarajan
It is working good. Thanks a lot.
i have done this work but it dose not work properly.
actually it dose not send a message “we can not authenticate user” like past
but after logging on with the root my desktop either KDE or GNOME could not be loaded.
gui login as regular user, open a command terminal, su root, gedit /etc/inittab
edit your inittab to change it to runlevel 3, then save and shutdown -r now
your computer will boot into command terminal now instead of gui, now login as root and startx.
done.
Great! It works.
Thank you! I really need to log in as ‘root’ and – yes – I do know what I am doing. It was pretty disconcerting not to be able to log in when the upgrade finished from 8. Again, thanks for the post on how to fix this super-annoying ‘feature’ of F10.
Thanks to Leandro in his post 02.04.09 at 10:25 am!!!
I’ve been looking on and off for a day or so to find a solution, and his is great! Not only is it simple, but it has the “feel” of being temporary, which is, I think, the way one should consider being logged in as root.
Great Tutorial. Thanks..
I don’t know why Fedora scrapped root gui logins but i’m sure it was security related?
Course…the way i see it anyone worthy of hacking into yer box sure as shooting isn’t gonna need a GUI…Now are they?
Thanks for the great info, i got my box back!
kingy
I am unable to login fedora core gui with root user, i tryed to do the the following, but still not able to login.. Kindly help
# auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
I am unable to login fedora 11 gui with root user, i tryed to do the the following, but still not able to login.. Kindly help
# auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
Hey, friendly community
Can u plz help me out, I installed fedora 10 on my pc and i’v been trying to build apache, php and mysql. But every time get this messege
[
[root@localhost Download]# cd httpd-2.2.11
[root@localhost httpd-2.2.11]# ./configure
checking for chosen layout… Apache
checking for working mkdir -p… yes
checking build system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking host system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking target system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
Configuring Apache Portable Runtime library …
checking for APR… reconfig
configuring package in srclib/apr now
checking build system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking host system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking target system type… i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
Configuring APR library
Platform: i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld
checking for working mkdir -p… yes
APR Version: 1.3.3
checking for chosen layout… apr
checking for gcc… no
checking for cc… no
checking for cl.exe… no
configure: error: in `/home/smarty/Download/httpd-2.2.11/srclib/apr’:
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log’ for more details.
configure failed for srclib/apr
[root@localhost httpd-2.2.11]#
No need to build it from source. Simply use yum command to install the same:
yum install httpd php mysql mysql-serverSorry dude, i forgot to tell you this.
I did use the yum installer but, but every time i try to open a page on localhost, an alias not from root folder(htdocs) i get the message
“Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /ROOTFOLDER on this server.
Apache/2.2.10 (Fedora) Server at localhost Port 80″
from the browser
This is Apache server configuration issue and it has nothing to do with yum or source code installation. Set correct permission on folder and see this faq for more details about forbidden errors.
This works great, I have been searching and searching and nothing came up. Thanks for the article.
Ted
Gee,
From the look of you error you do not have a compiler installed on your system. You can try this:
|> which gcc
/usr/lib/ccache/gcc
If you do not get something similar to the above, then you first need to install a compiler as well as the tool-chain before you can build packages from source code. At a minimum you will need the following programs:
make — a tool for automating compiling programs
gcc — GNU compiler collection, a front-end for a number of compilers
cc1 — the C compilers (comes with the gcc package)
as — an assembler (comes with the binutils package)
ld — the linker (and loader) (also comes with the binutils package)
wish I could tell you the yum packages you would have to get, but I tend to build everything from source code myself.
I locked my root user with passwd -l root. Can anyone help me unlock it?
Thanx, i’ll try that
i used this method to login root but failed on fedora 11 please help to login as root in gui fedora 11. thnks
Hey, “Gee”
You and use “passwd -uf root” but you’ll have to use a systemrescue CD inorder to do it so you can change the password for root.
Using Fedora 11 you might also want to check other files for checks against being root:
# grep -e ‘ root’ /etc/pam.d/*
/etc/pam.d/gdm:#auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
/etc/pam.d/gdm-fingerprint:#auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
/etc/pam.d/gdm-password:#auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
/etc/pam.d/xdm:#auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
You can even edit in the following way to get access as root:
auth required pam_succeed_if.so user quiet
Thanks a million……….
A very useful article…..
Did not work.
Rebooted, still cannot log in as root.
Why have they ruined Fedora!!