Linux Mint Forums

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You can use sudo. This will give you all the necessary permissions you could ever need, there is no reason to su at all.

However, in Mint 7 you can go to su by using your user password. I am still waiting to hear why this was done and get the full story, I feel it is a major security issue. You should always have a strong user password but most people make weak ones for convenience. I hope this is not going to be a default from now on, but I am open to hearing why this was decided.

I just confirmed this on my Mint install as I had never tried it because it is silly to log in as root or even su to root because sudo can accomplish everything that needs done in 99% of circumstances.

I was able to log in to a root GUI session in Mint 7 by using username root and my user password. I loged back out of that session and logged back into my user session and was also able to su to root in the terminal by also using the user password.

I find this to be dangerous, especially for those who use SSH . I bet I can hack into at least 5 user sessions of members in this forum by simply guessing their user names and passwords. In fact, just by looking for screenshots from members showing their terminal would give the user name. Most people create user passwords consisting of their name with a number, usually 1, or if they are a bit more creative their spouses name or their pet. I find this aspect of sudo to be a weak link and connecting a full root session to the user password is nothing short of stupid!!!

Be warned! Create a strong password!

You can change the root password anbd so activate the root account using this command:

I have activated a root account on Linux Mint 7 by mintassistant. A week ago I performed an update to Gloria. Now I have an activated root account which I want to remove but there is no tool to do so. I found a solution that I should use "sudo usermod -p '!' root" in terminal but it doesn't deactivate root account permanently. When I write "su" in terminal it asks me for password but it doesn't accept my password and neither root password previously set in Felicia. Of course I can still use sudo on my account.