Comments on: Enabling Root in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

By: Bulletproof Vests

Bulletproof Vests — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:04:03 +0000

Hey i got it to work thanks.

paulmc — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:33:36 +0000

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

Matt — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:21:03 +0000

well, how do i disable Root user??

paulmc — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:51:58 +0000

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.

paulmc — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:00:54 +0000

Hi Charlie,

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

Regards,
Paul.

Charlie — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:27:36 +0000

Or do this, in terminal:

sudo passwd root

It will then ask you for the password.