When I logout as a regular user and attempt to login as root in Fedora 17, the password does not work and I continue to get "authentication failure" even though I know I'm using the right password. Does Fedora 17 allow one to login as root? If so, why is my password not working. I have used su passwd and changed the password for root but it still does not work.
root login on run level 5 is not enabled in Fedora 17 by default so you need to make some changes if you want to login as root in fc17, i guess its enabled in Fedora 18
'root' is a special user, whose privilege is only invoked when administering the local system. It isn't intended to be available for general use. If you are using a GUI program that requires root access, you will usually be prompted for a password. If you need to use a command line as root, open a terminal as your normal user, then use su or sudo.
dancallo, you don't need a desktop environment for that...
Dancello, I've been using various versions of RedHat and Fedora since 1998, and have used Fedora as my only OS for over six years. The only times I've ever needed to use a GUI as root were to find out if sound worked for root, as it wasn't working for my normal user. Yes, there are GUI programs that run as root, such as yumex, but I don't need to be logged in as root to use them. (They ask for the root password when needed.) What is it that you want to do in a GUI that must be done with you logged in as root?
What Desktop interface do you use?, maybe the config files doesn't allow to login with root
I discourage the fashion of logging in as root and by default this is not allowed in Fedora 17 using gdm (graphical interface).
But if you want to change this behavior you will need to edit at least one PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module) file.
Edit this file: /etc/pam.d/gdm-password
vi /etc/pam.d/gdm-password
and comment the following line
#auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet
Adding a pound (#) sign at the beginning of the line will work.
Logout and try logging in again using root account credentials.
At Fedora 17 GUI login: I selected my username. At password prompt I picked on "Session..." and selected "KDE Plasma Workspace (failsafe session). It solved my problem. I hope that helps someone else.
Asked: 2013-01-01 20:32:04 -0500
Seen: 26,295 times
Last updated: Jun 07 '13
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