Hi all,

I have installed red hat enterprise linux 4 es. Only root login was created. Upon login in to the system for the first time, I entered the root id/pwd but an error 'Root logins not allowed'. Why is this happening since this is the first time I'm entering the system since the installation and no config files has been touched? And how do I enable root to login?

Thanks.

-LJT-

You will hear this more than once: never run as root. Use the system as a normal user, and only become the root account temporarily to do system administration.

RedHat normally does not allow root to log into the GUI environment partly because it's a serious risk to the stability of the system. Do not run as root for normal day-to-day use.

During install, there should have been a dialog box asking what users to create. At least one should be created at that step. If the rest of this reply makes no sense, you might consider reinstalling to avoid the confusion and making sure you create a regular, non-root user at this step of the install.

If you don't want to reinstall or can't, then you can log in to a text-based terminal. Hold down this key combination: Ctrl-Alt-F1. That should take you to a text login. The root account should be accessible from here. Use it to create a regular user with the useradd command. Type man useradd if read how to issue the command. After the user is created, change the user's password with passwd <new_username>. Then logout of the root account, hit Ctrl-Alt-F7 (which should return you to the GUI - otherwise try F5), and then log into the GUI with the normal user.

If the text-based login does not allow root to connect, then you'll either need to boot into single user mode or use the install disk to enter "rescue" mode. If none of that makes sense, then it would probably just be easiest to reinstall

thanks man...

i booted the system into a single mode and created the new user from there...manage to login now using the newly created user...

not too sure why wasnt i prompted to create new user during installation..usually when will that appear? in my installation, after entering the root password-select packages, the installation completed after installing all the files from the CDs

-LJT-

In my experience, the opportunity to create regular users almost always comes after the prompt for root's password. I'll qualify that though and say I've never installed RH Enterprise.

Regardless, I'm glad it's working for you.

I totally agree that users should not be logging on as root.

However a Linux OS should still provide that option. An installation asks for a root password to be created - and the option, however ill-advised, should still be there to log-in as root.

So, back to the original question of why does Fedora prevent root sign-on and how do we change this restriction?

Regards.
Elracorey

The option to login as root is still there as you can login in a terminal as root. So there's no restriction

The original question (2.5 years ago) was not about Fedora. The only distro that disables root by default is Ubuntu....but that's easy to fix (sudo passwd root).

I think you mean sign into the GUI (desktop) as root. Really bad idea, but can be enabled in the login manager.

some distros do not give you the option to create a user during installation. So one has to login as root the first time to set up the system. I think the option should be there.

Fedora does allow GUI logins as root, though it gives a message to be careful. The current case is either RHEL specific or more likely a missed opportunity to create a common user during install.

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