Disallow root login to X using xdm

Message

VPN-User · Post by **VPN-User** » Wed May 31, 2006 2:06 pm

Hello,

I am able to login to my X.org server using xdm and root account which IMHO is a bad thing which I want to change. I already googled and searched in the forums, but found nothing useful.

How can I disallow the root user to login into X using xdm? I know kdm and gdm provide options for that, but I am low at disk space, using xfce only and I don' t want all these qt and gtk libs installed so I want to stick with xdm. Any ideas?

quinn_jones · Post by **quinn_jones** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:48 am

Why do you need to? It's disabled for security. You'd be better off logging in as a regular user, opening a terminal window, and using su to run the commands you need. It's safer, almost as a convenient, and (best of all) gives you an extra step that will make you pause and wonder why you need to be root in the first place.

You do have the option of logging into a console as root and starting X, but again, why do you need to be root?

-- Quinn

VPN-User · Post by **VPN-User** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 5:31 am

Sorry, I DON' T want to be able to login as root! But I am! And I want to disallow root login.

zpet731 · Post by **zpet731** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 2:19 pm

VPN-User wrote:Sorry, I DON' T want to be able to login as root! But I am! And I want to disallow root login.

If you are using xdm as your display manager, you need to locate your Xresources file which is located in "/etc/X11/xdm/Xresources". Then you need to place a line (prefferably at the top) that says:

Code: Select all

xlogin.Login.allowRootLogin: false

By default it is set to true. Then of course restart xdm and you're done. For further information and settings look at "man xdm". Cheers!