Mandriva 2007 Root logins not allowed

Pasch · 10-12-2006, 03:03 PM

Hi there,

I used to use Windows XP Pro SP2 and have recently made this a dualboot with Linux Mandriva 2007 Free. All my windows partitions are in NTFS, which Linux can't write to, and my Linux partitions are invisible in Windows. So I created a "bridge" partition which is formatted in FAT32, so that both Windows and Linux would be able to write to it and it would be possible to swap data between the two OS'es. There's just one problem: Linux won't let me write to that partition from the default account I'm using. I want to change the permissions so that I will be allowed to write to that disk from this account as well, but in order to change the permissions I need to login to the root account. When I try to login to the root account I get the message "root logins not allowed". Does anybody have any idea how I could get access to the root account or, better yet, get all the rights from the root account on the account I'm currently using? If anybody could help me with this I'd be very grateful. I'm relatively new to Linux so I apologize if this seems a stupid question.

XJ. · 10-12-2006, 10:43 PM

Boot into single user (forget the params) and you should be root. Hopefully create a user account from there with all the permission you need. I haven't done something like this in about 6 years, but it's probably worth a try.l

Jorrell · 10-12-2006, 10:50 PM

Definitely not a stupid question at all. Sounds like there might actually be two issues here though.

1. I suspect you're trying to log into X (kde/gnome) as root and it won't let you? This is usually a security feature. Unfortunately I don't know much about Mandriva, but odds are there is a control panel for configuring login somewhere. Just enable root login.

2. The other problem is that you can't access the mount point for that partition as a regular user. Try adding "users" to the option line for that mount in /etc/fstab You can only edit that file if you have superuser privileges though. To temporarily get superuser privileges use "su" or "sudo <some_command>" in a terminal.

In a terminal:

Code:

sudo nano -w /etc/fstab

Find the line for the mount point for that partition. I'll assume it is /mnt/share and the partition is /dev/sda5. If that is the case it will probably look something like this:

Code:

/dev/sda5               /mnt/share     vfat            noatime         1 2

Add the "users" option.

Code:

/dev/sda5               /mnt/share     vfat            noatime,users         1 2

Also I believe you can mount an ntfs partition under linux, reading is fine. I'm not sure if writing is safe though. Either way I'm pretty sure it can't understand Vista's version of ntfs.

Pasch · 10-13-2006, 10:53 AM

First off thanks for the replies. I've found out this much about the root login not being allowed: There's a configuration file in mandriva with the location /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc. In there is a line: AllowRootLogin=false, which needs to be changed to true. I don't have permission to edit that file from the default account, so I went into the console, did "su-", the password and then "vi /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc". I was able to open the file from the console and I tried to get into insert mode, which I think I did (ctrl+i), but it still wouldn't let me edit that line. Whenever I try to all it says is: "Already at oldest change" and I'm unsure what it means by that. It will only let me edit the comment lines in the configuration file, which isn't much use to me. I'm unsure of what I'm doing wrong there.

@Jorrell, thank you! I'll try to get access with the line you gave me right now. Before that I've already tried to go into su- mode and then do chown user hdb9 (which is the hd I need access to) but it still wouldn't work. I'm going to try your lines and I'll let you know whether it works or not.

Thank you very much!

XJ. · 10-13-2006, 11:11 AM

Doh, I assumed you you had already tried sudo

Glad it all worked out

Pasch · 10-13-2006, 12:04 PM

I have managed to get access to the root account now, by editing that configuration file from vi while in su - mode. I went into the root account and tried to change the permissions for hdb9 in the following manner: group: "can view and modify content" (instead of "can view content"). When I change that and click "ok" it doesn't give me any error like "permission denied" this time, it just closes the window without any error, but then when I reopen the permissions window I see that the permission for group has just been reset again to "can view content". I don't see why it won't save the permissions since root is the owner of that harddisk and I should just be able to change the permissions from there. So the final problem I have is that it won't save the permissions I set it to. If anybody could help me with that I'd greatly appreciate it and all my Linux problems for now would be fixed.

XJ. · 10-13-2006, 02:39 PM

Are there Mandriva forums? Sounds like there is some daemon running which resets permissions.

Pasch · 10-13-2006, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XJ.

Are there Mandriva forums? Sounds like there is some daemon running which resets permissions.

That could be, there should be mandriva forums so I'll look around for one. I found a good one but that was a paid site so I couldn't ask there yet.

Pasch · 10-14-2006, 05:09 AM

Just a little update. Looks as if it finally worked. I'd gotten access to the root account before as described above. To get write access to that FAT32 disk I had to change the option " mount automatically" to " false" from the harddisk properties window, then go into Mandriva configuration, Mount points and then "Create, delete and resize harddisk partitions". From there, when I set it to expert mode, I unmounted the disk and changed the mount point to /opt. I went into "options" and enabled " write access for ordinary users".

I had tried that before but it kept forgetting every change I made, as if it had amnesia or something. I'd enable write access for ordinary users and exit the window, then it would just have it set back to the way it was before when I reopened the window. It seemed as if the disk was mounted read only, but according to Linux it wasn't. So I unmounted the disk, turned off mount automatically and had to mount it under /opt and then it worked. I have write access to the disk from my normal user account now, so that's just perfect. The only thing is that now !everybody! has write access to that disk, not only the entire group but also the entire category "others" . Even though this partition only contains some unimportant data like pictures etc., it still seems rather unsafe to me. Is there anything I could do to make it safer? Thank you!

EDIT: What I actually want to know is: What umask value could I use to get read & write access for both "user" and "group", and only read access to "others". I've tried googling it but seem unable to find that value. I've found one page stating that 770 would be the correct value, but that doesn't work, instead it gives "others" read and write access and forbids all access to both "user" and "group".

Jorrell · 10-14-2006, 10:25 AM

umask subtracts privileges

I'm not sure but try 002

XJ. · 10-14-2006, 10:26 AM

try 'man chmod'

Pasch · 10-14-2006, 11:27 AM

I tried vi /etc/fstab and setting umask to 002, and it worked. Thank you! Looks like everything is set up the way I wanted it to now.

@Jorrell, thanks for the hint about umask subtracting privileges. I thought that by appointing a 7 I'd be giving full access but it turns out that was actually blocking all access. That explains why everything was working in reverse. :P

Thanks for all the quick help!

Jorrell · 10-14-2006, 05:47 PM

Good, I'm glad it worked out. Good luck with it!

Pasch · 10-15-2006, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorrell

Good, I'm glad it worked out. Good luck with it!

Thank you!

XP64GAMRBOX · 01-15-2007, 12:15 AM

ok i was able to log on to the root

but i am not able to view or i can't figure out what to use to view my files on the root

I am like going bonkers

over here trying to get to the config file to get this thing to duel boot .

10-12-2006, 03:03 PM	#1
Pasch Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 427	Mandriva 2007 Root logins not allowed Hi there, I used to use Windows XP Pro SP2 and have recently made this a dualboot with Linux Mandriva 2007 Free. All my windows partitions are in NTFS, which Linux can't write to, and my Linux partitions are invisible in Windows. So I created a "bridge" partition which is formatted in FAT32, so that both Windows and Linux would be able to write to it and it would be possible to swap data between the two OS'es. There's just one problem: Linux won't let me write to that partition from the default account I'm using. I want to change the permissions so that I will be allowed to write to that disk from this account as well, but in order to change the permissions I need to login to the root account. When I try to login to the root account I get the message "root logins not allowed". Does anybody have any idea how I could get access to the root account or, better yet, get all the rights from the root account on the account I'm currently using? If anybody could help me with this I'd be very grateful. I'm relatively new to Linux so I apologize if this seems a stupid question.
(Offline)

10-12-2006, 10:43 PM	#2
XJ. ... Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: NH, USA Posts: 6,078	Boot into single user (forget the params) and you should be root. Hopefully create a user account from there with all the permission you need. I haven't done something like this in about 6 years, but it's probably worth a try.l __________________
(Offline)

10-12-2006, 10:50 PM	#3
Jorrell baka neko Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 714	Definitely not a stupid question at all. Sounds like there might actually be two issues here though. 1. I suspect you're trying to log into X (kde/gnome) as root and it won't let you? This is usually a security feature. Unfortunately I don't know much about Mandriva, but odds are there is a control panel for configuring login somewhere. Just enable root login. 2. The other problem is that you can't access the mount point for that partition as a regular user. Try adding "users" to the option line for that mount in /etc/fstab You can only edit that file if you have superuser privileges though. To temporarily get superuser privileges use "su" or "sudo <some_command>" in a terminal. In a terminal: Code: sudo nano -w /etc/fstab Find the line for the mount point for that partition. I'll assume it is /mnt/share and the partition is /dev/sda5. If that is the case it will probably look something like this: Code: /dev/sda5 /mnt/share vfat noatime 1 2 Add the "users" option. Code: /dev/sda5 /mnt/share vfat noatime,users 1 2 Also I believe you can mount an ntfs partition under linux, reading is fine. I'm not sure if writing is safe though. Either way I'm pretty sure it can't understand Vista's version of ntfs. __________________
(Offline)

10-13-2006, 10:53 AM	#4
Pasch Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 427	First off thanks for the replies. I've found out this much about the root login not being allowed: There's a configuration file in mandriva with the location /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc. In there is a line: AllowRootLogin=false, which needs to be changed to true. I don't have permission to edit that file from the default account, so I went into the console, did "su-", the password and then "vi /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc". I was able to open the file from the console and I tried to get into insert mode, which I think I did (ctrl+i), but it still wouldn't let me edit that line. Whenever I try to all it says is: "Already at oldest change" and I'm unsure what it means by that. It will only let me edit the comment lines in the configuration file, which isn't much use to me. I'm unsure of what I'm doing wrong there. @Jorrell, thank you! I'll try to get access with the line you gave me right now. Before that I've already tried to go into su- mode and then do chown user hdb9 (which is the hd I need access to) but it still wouldn't work. I'm going to try your lines and I'll let you know whether it works or not. Thank you very much! Last edited by Pasch : 10-13-2006 at 11:01 AM.
(Offline)

10-13-2006, 11:11 AM	#5
XJ. ... Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: NH, USA Posts: 6,078	Doh, I assumed you you had already tried sudo Glad it all worked out __________________
(Offline)

10-13-2006, 12:04 PM	#6
Pasch Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 427	I have managed to get access to the root account now, by editing that configuration file from vi while in su - mode. I went into the root account and tried to change the permissions for hdb9 in the following manner: group: "can view and modify content" (instead of "can view content"). When I change that and click "ok" it doesn't give me any error like "permission denied" this time, it just closes the window without any error, but then when I reopen the permissions window I see that the permission for group has just been reset again to "can view content". I don't see why it won't save the permissions since root is the owner of that harddisk and I should just be able to change the permissions from there. So the final problem I have is that it won't save the permissions I set it to. If anybody could help me with that I'd greatly appreciate it and all my Linux problems for now would be fixed.
(Offline)

10-13-2006, 02:39 PM	#7
XJ. ... Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: NH, USA Posts: 6,078	Are there Mandriva forums? Sounds like there is some daemon running which resets permissions. __________________
(Offline)

10-14-2006, 05:09 AM	#9
Pasch Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 427	Just a little update. Looks as if it finally worked. I'd gotten access to the root account before as described above. To get write access to that FAT32 disk I had to change the option " mount automatically" to " false" from the harddisk properties window, then go into Mandriva configuration, Mount points and then "Create, delete and resize harddisk partitions". From there, when I set it to expert mode, I unmounted the disk and changed the mount point to /opt. I went into "options" and enabled " write access for ordinary users". I had tried that before but it kept forgetting every change I made, as if it had amnesia or something. I'd enable write access for ordinary users and exit the window, then it would just have it set back to the way it was before when I reopened the window. It seemed as if the disk was mounted read only, but according to Linux it wasn't. So I unmounted the disk, turned off mount automatically and had to mount it under /opt and then it worked. I have write access to the disk from my normal user account now, so that's just perfect. The only thing is that now !everybody! has write access to that disk, not only the entire group but also the entire category "others" . Even though this partition only contains some unimportant data like pictures etc., it still seems rather unsafe to me. Is there anything I could do to make it safer? Thank you! EDIT: What I actually want to know is: What umask value could I use to get read & write access for both "user" and "group", and only read access to "others". I've tried googling it but seem unable to find that value. I've found one page stating that 770 would be the correct value, but that doesn't work, instead it gives "others" read and write access and forbids all access to both "user" and "group". Last edited by Pasch : 10-14-2006 at 05:50 AM. Reason: Posing question in a clearer manner.
(Offline)

10-14-2006, 10:25 AM	#10
Jorrell baka neko Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 714	umask subtracts privileges I'm not sure but try 002 __________________
(Offline)

10-14-2006, 10:26 AM	#11
XJ. ... Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: NH, USA Posts: 6,078	try 'man chmod' __________________
(Offline)

10-14-2006, 11:27 AM	#12
Pasch Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 427	I tried vi /etc/fstab and setting umask to 002, and it worked. Thank you! Looks like everything is set up the way I wanted it to now. @Jorrell, thanks for the hint about umask subtracting privileges. I thought that by appointing a 7 I'd be giving full access but it turns out that was actually blocking all access. That explains why everything was working in reverse. :P Thanks for all the quick help!
(Offline)

10-14-2006, 05:47 PM	#13
Jorrell baka neko Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 714	Good, I'm glad it worked out. Good luck with it! __________________
(Offline)

01-15-2007, 12:15 AM	#15
XP64GAMRBOX Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: oklahoma Posts: 2	XP PRO & Mandriva ok i was able to log on to the root but i am not able to view or i can't figure out what to use to view my files on the root I am like going bonkers over here trying to get to the config file to get this thing to duel boot .
(Offline)

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode