Log into root directly

Question

Quite a while back i'd worked briefly on Red Hat, and it had this option of booting into root directly, and not using the su command to change your access. I know that by default the root account is disabled in Ubuntu and for all practical purposes is as good as non existent, but still suppose it is unlocked, can we log into root directly?

Ideas?

It is possible to log in as root but not recommended and never neccessary. See these questions Creating exact root user in Ubuntu 12.04 and How to enable root login? — Warren Hill, May 13 '13 at 18:57
See also answers to this question: Why is it bad to run as root? — Takkat, May 13 '13 at 19:04
@Warren, thank you for those links, but, what i'm asking is that whether or not there is an option which would allow me to boot my ubuntu machine as the root user, ie, as soon as the machine starts and i open the terminal, it's in the 'root@computer-name' format. — Projjol, May 13 '13 at 19:12
@Takkat, i've seen that link earlier, and i never do use the root account, unless it is absolutely necessary (which it hardly is), my question was to see whether or not this option is there, the security implications and vulnerabilities that it poses, i've read on from the same page. — Projjol, May 13 '13 at 19:16
Here we go: http://askubuntu.com/questions/92556/how-do-i-boot-into-a-root-shell — Takkat, May 13 '13 at 19:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 13 '13 at 19:05

0

The root account is not disabled, it is locked.

The preferred method is to use sudo, specifically sudo -i

See: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

You can run graphical applications with gksu, it needs to be installed on 13.04

sudo apt-get install gksu

You can always boot to a root shell by booting to recovery mode and dropping to a root shell.

You can ssh in as root using keys or by setting a password.

answered May 13 '13 at 19:05

Panther

102,067

Is there nothing similar to the recovery mode root shell option in the regular system? ie, can i start my machine as the root user and not as the default user then change to the root user? – Projjol May 13 '13 at 19:14
No, Ubuntu strongly discourages logging in a root and with sudo -i it really does not matter. sorry to say, but your method is "old school" and supported less and less, sudo is used more and more. – Panther May 13 '13 at 20:16
ok, i was just asking to see whether or not it there, thanks. – Projjol May 14 '13 at 07:15

Log into root directly

1 Answers1