root on live CDs
 

I have tried several live CDs as tools like Knoppix (and Knoppix STD), Slax, PHLAK, along with some other variations. However, out of the ones I have tried, Slax is the only one I can login as root and actually do anything administrative. The only problem I have found with this is that I have had some machines in which I cannot mount the hard disk when Knoppix will do so just fine. So, is there any way to login as root on Knoppix? (I like its auto-mounting) If not with Knoppix, is there another one that will allow this?

I would have expected PHLAK to use a root account (since it's called "Professional Hacker's Linux Assault Kit"), but from what I saw of it, there is no option and su is password protected with no password provided.

i have tried this on knoppix V 3.2

in a shell
run

su

and u are in admin mode

regards

i think in knoppix, you basically log in as root. you can set a password for it by opening a terminal and type "passwd" and it will prompt you for the new password...it's been awhile since i used knoppix...so i'm not entirely sure if this is how the newer versions work.

You can use root in knoppix...

At the K menu, go up to KNOPPIX > Root Shell
This is the prompt: root@1[knoppix]#
If you want to change the root password, this is where you would do that.

If you want to open the konqueror as root user type: kdesu konqueror

is there an option to pass at boot time so that we start in as root??

regards

Thanks for the "su" suggestion, but I was actually looking for a way to use the gui as root. It's easier to show clients what I'm doing when they're used to Windows and don't understand the command line.

As for Knoppix using root as default, it actually uses the user account "knoppix" (at least it does in 3.2) and restricts access to many things. The reason this causes a problem is that the shop I've been working at has gotten some Linux machines donated to them because of bad hardware. One of the guys at the shop wanted to see what was on one of these drives, so we hooked it up, but couldn't login, so I used a couple of my live CDs to access it, but Slax wouldn't mount the drive and Knoppix wouldn't let me into /root, /home/<user>, or access half of the other files or directories.

This is helpful.

This would be a perfect solution for me.

This may help:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17024

KC

I think this answers my question very nicely. I'll have to wait before I can try it out though. Thank you very much.