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rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Daedalus with Lightdm and Cinnamon installed from a netinstall: I can login as root on my desktop. Why is this possible? I thought this is a nogo and disabled.

Tested also a VM with Excalibur and Cinnamon, Trixie with LXDE: same picture.

Last edited by rolfie (2025-09-28 16:15:24)

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,198  

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Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Been able to do that since I first installed Daedalus in the fall of 2023...always been that way hasn't it?

Don't know why it would be a no-go.

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Andre4freedom

Member

Registered: 2017-11-15

Posts: 213  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Very interesting.
I have Daedalus with Lightdm and Cinnamon, but I'm not able to login as root on the lightdm login-screen.
But, isn't it much more important to disable the ssh-login as root on the machine? These is done so automatically when installing the ssh-server. Check it here: /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
And a last point: have a very secure password for root! Obviously.
So much my 2 cents

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

My sshd is configured for no root login.

Now I am looking for the same feature in lightdm. I failed to find something, also in the greeter.

I consider a graphical root login as a security risk.

Andre4freedom

Member

Registered: 2017-11-15

Posts: 213  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

The hack is in the file /etc/lightdm/users.conf

The section:
[UserList]
minimum-uid=500

may help a lot. The root user is UID 0, GID 0.
So you couldn't find a root login entry in the login window.
I hope this helps. Greetings!

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Thanks, that line already is present. Seems to be ignored.

I have here:

[UserList]
minimum-uid=500
hidden-users=nobody nobody4 noaccess
hidden-shells=/bin/false /usr/sbin/nologin /sbin/nologin

Edit: Just saw:

# NOTE: If you have AccountsService installed on your system, then LightDM will
# use this instead and these settings will be ignored

Does this AccountsService relate to PAM?

Last edited by rolfie (2025-09-28 17:03:51)

Andre4freedom

Member

Registered: 2017-11-15

Posts: 213  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Thanks for you info.....
but, now I'm lost. Sounds like mystery to me.
Greetings

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,311  

Re: Login as root on Graphcial desktop possible

Its not limited to Devuan.

Raised the topic in the German Debian forum too: https://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=192885

Last edited by rolfie (2025-09-29 18:23:31)