[andreas_g4]

So yesterday I was working in Keynote when my MacBook suddenly restarted. While this happened to me the first time ever (no warning signs, no lock up, nothing), the strange thing is that now the Root User is mysteriously enabled an shows up in the fast user switching panel. I did never enable root on this machine, and I don't know the password for root, which irritates me a lot. It's not empty, it's not my admin password and it's not the password of my standard user.

Are there any routines which I can trigger to get rid of teh erratic behaviour? I can't disable root via Netinfo Manager 'cause I don't know the password (since I never enabled it).

I already sent feedback to Apple.

[Cadaver]

You can boot off the OS X install DVD to reset the root password. Once done, you can reboot off the HD and disable root.

[Laurence]

ANY admin user can reset the root password without resorting to booting off the OS CD. Just open the terminial and type the following commands...

sudo -s<ENTER>
<ENTER YOUR PASSWORD>
passwd<ENTER>

The sudo -s command gives you a root shell and then the passwd command asks you to enter a password. You don't have to know the previous password as you are root and root doesn't need any passwords to do anything. This works just fine even if the root account is disabled in netinfo manager or not.