su not asking for password

[Apostate]

Using Rawhide and when using "su" I go straight to root privilages without the need for a password. I am not logged in as root either - just as a regular user.

[Dutchy]

Is the root password set?

[smr54]

I'm guessing this is a rawhide issue. It shouldn't happen. In most distributions, where there is no root password set, the only way to get root is to do sudo su, and then, assuming you're in a group allowed to do ALL on sudo, you are able to su.

However, if no root password is set, then su by itself shouldn't work.

If this is the case, I would guess it's a bug.

I just tried in console on freshly updated F18 (though this is beta rather than rawhide per se) and that wasn't the case, if I typed su it required the root password.

One thing though. If you do sudo su -c <command> and then do it again within 5 minutes or so, it won't ask for a password the second time. In that case, however, it requires the user's, rather than root's, password.

[Apostate]

Originally Posted by Dutchy

Is the root password set?

Yes it was set during installation.

[DBelton]

I used to get into Ubuntu all the time by specifying no password on the su command (just hit enter when asked for password), even though root user by default had no password set. I never did use sudo in Ubuntu.

I haven't tried Ubuntu since sometime around version 9 or 10, so it may be fixed by now.

I haven't tried it in F18 yet, either. There is a difference in just not specifying a password for root, and disabling the root login. I am not certain which one is being done.

[smr54]

In Fedora, so far as I can tell (from an error on one test install) if you don't specify a root password during installation, you've disabled root. I didn't have a user set up either--this was a minimum install and the minimal install doesn't run first boot, so that one had to be redone.