I have an issue,
I recently installed Mandrake 10.1 on a box in command line form, so no gui.
I decided to select the 'high' security option which is fine for the most part except I have to su to root to do anything (which is fine).
The box needs to have the root user enabled as I need to scp some files to & from it nightly & I need it to be able to login as root.

So how do I enable loging in as the root user directly from the command prompt?

Any help would be appreciated.
regards,
Will

You shouldn´t have. You should install Mandrake with the lowest possible security. This is the recomended one for a desktop, you should only choose another if you are trying to set up a server or you know what you are doing.

You really should rethink what you are trying to do, because loging in as root on a UNIX environment is not desirable or normal.

It is a server, I am asking a question which I require the answer to.
I do not require advice on security matters thank you anyway.
Back to my original question can I configure root user to be able to log in? & if so how.

At risk of sounding like a real dumbass, I'll ask, does typing the word root and giving root's password at the login prompt not work? Something tells me I don't understand the question............I was not aware you could disable the ability to log in as root.

No it doesn't allow you in.
Yes Mandrake does not allow you to log in as root directly if you select the high security option when installing.
Nor does it allow ssh access directly by root either.

You must define a user, login as that user & the su (super user) to the root account. Which is fine, but I need to be able to login as root to do certain things as this pc is a backup server & I need to scp (secure copy) files from it. To do this I would like to be able to log in as root.

I can set it up so that a scp these files and login as a user, but for the sake of this operation it would be better if I find a way to enable the logon of root directly.

perfect, a dumbass I shall be tonight LOL. I have no experience with servers or ssh, but I'm usually not too bad at googling.

How about this?

Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and set the PermitRootLogin parameter to yes

Thread edit: found a possibly good article for you
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_do_..._with_ssh.html

Thank you for your reply, your help is appreciated
will try this when I get a chance it may solve it may not but willing to give it a shot.