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Enabling Root in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

When troubleshooting your Mac, it helps if you can log in as a different user. Instead of creating a new user, you can enable Root. Here’s how:

  1. Open Finder,
  2. Browse to Applications -> Utilities,
  3. Open Directory Utility,
  4. Click the lock to make changes,
  5. Enter your password when prompted,
  6. From the Taskbar go to Edit -> Enable Root User,
  7. Enter a new password for Root,
  8. Confirm the password and click OK,
  9. Close Directory Utility, and log out of your Mac,
  10. At the login screen, click the picture for Other…,
  11. Type the username root, with the password you previously set.

The root account should only be used when absolutely necessary, and when you know what you’re doing.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 03:00 and is filed under Apple, Mac, Mac OS X, Software, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Enabling Root in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard”

  1. Charlie says:
    Monday, 21st January, 2008 at 01:27

    Or do this, in terminal:

    sudo passwd root

    It will then ask you for the password.

  2. paulmc says:
    Monday, 21st January, 2008 at 05:00

    Hi Charlie,

    This will only work of the root account is already enabled, it’s disabled by default.

    Regards,
    Paul.

  3. paulmc says:
    Tuesday, 22nd January, 2008 at 23:51

    I’ve just played around with this, and you’re correct. My apologies.

    When using

    sudo passwd root

    the shell will return with an error message:

    passwd: Unable to change password for record root. Account is disabled.

    Despite this error message, the root account is enabled, as is confirmed by using

    su

    to login as root.

    Thanks Charlie for pointing this out.

    Cheers,
    Paul.

  4. Matt says:
    Tuesday, 12th February, 2008 at 08:21

    well, how do i disable Root user??

  5. paulmc says:
    Tuesday, 12th February, 2008 at 08:33

    Once root is enabled, the Edit menu in Directory Utility will display a “Disable root” option.

  6. Bulletproof Vests says:
    Thursday, 23rd July, 2009 at 05:04

    Hey i got it to work thanks.