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How do I get the Root User Login back?

M

MrMopar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 27, 2011
8
0
Short story:

Installed a new SSD drive and restored from a Time Machine backup. For some reason that wouldn't allow me to enable File Vault so I used the Lion install USB to wipe the drive, do a fresh install of Lion, update to 10.7.2 and then used Migration Assistant to pull all my files and apps onto the fresh Lion install where File Vault would turn on properly.

Now when booting the "Other . . ." choice of users is gone. I still have my account, and the Guest User account that boots to a Safari browser for the Find My Mac feature, but the "Other" login prompt where I usually type Root and then password to login isn't there.

Disabling Root, restart, enable Root, restart still doesn't bring it back. How can I get that Root user login back? I realize I can use the Login preferences to require that the username and password be typed, allowing me to type Root to login, but I would rather have the "Other" prompt to make it easier to Login to my regular account.

This isn't a terrible problem as I think I've only used the Root account for one or two specific things, but still is something nagging that I'd like fixed. Can anyone help?
 
OK, I decrypted the drive by turning File Vault off and then restarted.

Using Terminal to give the command "sudo passwd root" gives me the following response: "Account is disabled via authentication authority, must be enabled first Credential verification failed because account is disabled." I expected this as I had used the Apple instructions to access Directory Utility and turn the root user off.

When I turned the root user on and restarted, the "Other" choice on the Login screen was back but none of the passwords to access root worked. I even tried using the Master Password to reset the password to the root account and it didn't work. When logged on to my regular Admin account I used the Terminal command "sudo passwd root" and got the following reply: "Could not verify credentials because directory server does not support the requested authentication method. Could not verify credentials because directory server does not support the requested authentication method."

No method of resetting the root password seems to be giving me any access that I can use to login as root. What the heck is going on here?
 
Every time you disable root, then re-enable it, it requires a new password, from what I understand. It does not remember the root password across enables/disables.

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