[SoBayJake]

I've had this happen to my twice now..once with an upgrade from 10.2.8 to Panther, another with a clean install.

I enable the root account and login with it (from the login screen) to do some things, and then log out. When I get back to the login screen, all I see are the regular user accounts. There is no option for "Other" to log in as root.

Going to NetInfoManager, the option exists for "Enable root user." I try that, enter my password, it is accepted, and nothing happens. The menu option does not change to "Disable root user."

If I change to login method to "Enter name/password" I can log in directly as root. So I think the root account is actually enabled, and I can't disable it. Any ideas?

I checked the Apple support pages, and others seem to be experiencing the same things.

Thanks!
Jake

[asdasd]

I think the problem is that when you login the first time to your root account - a shadow hash password is created - and the password field is populated with ********.

I suspect that both loginwindow/SecurityAgent and the Netinfo manager have old code to determine if the root account is not set by the existance of an *, so the shadow hash broke it.


anyways, just type in any old crap ( except something begining with an asterix) to the password field.

it won't matter because that field is now defunct . The shaodw hash - written on disk - is the real password.

NOTE: do this only after the first time you login as root.

[Mithras]

You can switch from the 'list of users' login panel to the 'name and password' panel by doing this:

1. press down-arrow once to select a user from the list
2. press option-return

ta-da!

[SoBayJake]

Originally posted by asdasd:
I think the problem is that when you login the first time to your root account - a shadow hash password is created - and the password field is populated with ********.
...
NOTE: do this only after the first time you login as root.

Thanks asdasd!!

That got the "Other" choice back, and my root password was left unchanged.

Jake