Don’t log in as root.
Log in with your normal account and use sudo when you need to run something that requires root privileges.
For example, in the terminal, use
sudo -i
for a root shell.
Kali always used to allow you to log in and run as root (with the default password toor), but they recently changed that behaviour.
However, that said - it is possible to re-enable the root login:
Update your package lists and then install the kali-root-login package:
Bash:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install kali-root-login
Then, if necessary - reset your root password using:
You’ll be prompted to enter the new password twice.
Then either log out of your desktop session, or reboot your machine.
Once you’re back at the login page, you can change the user to root, enter your new password and then you should be able to log into a desktop session as root.
Personally, I’d just stick with using sudo, so things only run as root when necessary. The Kali devs disabled root login for fairly obvious reasons.
Originally backtrack/Kali was intended to be something that primarily booted from a USB thumb drive. It wasn’t meant to be your regular, daily, general-use distro. It was the sort of thing you’d boot up when you needed it. So it didn’t matter that everything ran as root.
But now that so many people install it on their PC’s and use it as their main distro - from a security standpoint - it makes sense for the Kali devs to disable root login by default.