Fedora 12 Enable root login in GUI

Written on December 12th, 2009 at 20:27 pm by chia

Fedora 12 uses pam module called pam_succeed_if.so. This module is designed to succeed or fail authentication based on characterstics of the account of the authenticated user. Default configuration of this module blocks root login using GUI.

Login as Normal User.

Open the terminal and use vim or gedit to open the /etc/pam.d/gdm

su -c "vim /etc/pam.d/gdm"

Comment the following line  'auth required pam_succeed_if.so user !=root quiet'

# auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet

Do the same for "/etc/pam.d/gdm-password

Save the file and logout from GUI. Now you can login as root :)

23 Comments

Anon Linuxer (not verified)
December 23rd, 2009 04:42 am

Thanks, it worked :)

Anon Linuxer (not verified)
April 4th, 2010 06:46 am
Work! =)
murugan (not verified)
December 24th, 2009 01:30 pm
Do the same for "/etc/pam.d/gdm-password" Comment the following line 'auth required pam_succeed_if.so user !=root quiet'
gajendra (not verified)
February 13th, 2010 10:38 am
tell me how can i save it
blockhart329 (not verified)
December 28th, 2009 02:00 am
When I log in as normal user and use the su -c "vim /etc/pam.d/gdm" command it says no such file or directory exists.
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
January 17th, 2010 10:01 am
yes I had the same problem
ska_ass (not verified)
March 3rd, 2010 03:02 am
use gedit
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
January 17th, 2010 10:33 am
typing su - root gets you into the root
Sreekanth (not verified)
January 27th, 2010 02:04 am
Thanks for the details, this helped
Haruko (not verified)
January 27th, 2010 11:44 am
Instead of using su -c "vim /etc/pam.d/gdm" Use: su -c "gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm" & su-c "gedit /etc/pam.d/dgm-password" vim is another text editor.
bob (not verified)
February 1st, 2010 02:12 am
work like a charme thx...
Johnny (not verified)
February 9th, 2010 03:37 am
Where I can add "root" at the user list when Gnome Start? Thank you!
Hitesh (not verified)
February 23rd, 2010 02:12 pm
Worked !!
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
March 15th, 2010 03:11 pm
It is very helpfull and thanks sathya bhaarathy
vedic mathematic (not verified)
March 26th, 2010 11:56 am
Great work thanks for the useful information Thanks vedic math blog
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
April 29th, 2010 01:50 pm
The worked for me with Ubuntu 9.04
sudo vi /etc/gdm/custom.conf
You can either have an automatic login with the following:
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=root
Or you can have a timed automatic login with:
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=root
TimedLoginDelay=10

Cheers sakiwi :)
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
May 8th, 2010 05:20 pm
thanks!!!
vicky (not verified)
May 9th, 2010 08:53 am
hi friends, i am new to linux..... i installed fedora 12 on vmware but there i get command line interface. when i enter a command of STARTX it gives an error of COMMAND NOT FOUND. How to start the gui in it pls help me i am completely new to it...
castorm (not verified)
June 11th, 2010 02:47 am
Increase the memory size of the target VM from 250M to 500M prior to installing Fedora 12.
Anon Linuxer (not verified)
June 21st, 2010 05:13 pm
Thanx
Ved Sharma (not verified)
November 19th, 2010 09:26 am
you need to change two files Comment these lines pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet 1 ) /etc/pam.d/gdm #pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet 2) /etc/pam.d/gdm-password #pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet You’ll find pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet in above files, replace root with anything e.g test
mahdi bagheri (not verified)
November 25th, 2010 09:45 pm
Thanks so much.
Swapnil Mate (not verified)
January 11th, 2011 01:30 pm
Thanx. this is the great information. i have realy get the result.

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