Enabling Root User in Kali Linux

In some of the cases you may need to login using the superuser root in Kali Linux. However, by default the root user in Kali Linux is disabled and when you try to login you will get password is incorrect error.

 

In this case, you will have to install a package and make some modifications to fully enable the root account user.

 

Enabling the root account

 

First, set a root user's password. This can be done using following commands:

 

kali@kali:~$ sudo passwd password for kali:New password:Retype new password:passwd: password updated successfullykali@kali:~$

 

Please note that the password prompt will not display output as you are typing in the password, but it will still register the keystrokes

 

Enabling root for GNOME and KDE login

 

You first need to install kali-root-login to modify some configuration files that will allow you to login to the root account via the GNOME & the KDE login prompts.

 

kali@kali:~$ sudo apt -y install kali-root-login

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

The following NEW packages will be installed:

kali-root-login

0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1516 not upgraded.

Need to get 6,776 B of archives.

After this operation, 33.8 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Get:1 kali.download/kali kali-rolling/main amd64 kali-root-login all 2019.4.0

Fetched 6,776 B in 1s (10.9 kB/s)

Selecting previously unselected package kali-root-login.

(Reading database ...

 

hacksheets.in/enabling-root-user-in-kali-linux/

Done