Root Access denied although sshd_config is edited correctly.

mitu

The password is incorrect, most likely. Use sudo su to become root, then type passwd to change the password.

Sano

Anyway, enabling root login through ssh is a bad idea from a system/security point of view.
You should login with pi (or any other user) and then take root privileges only when necessary.

I know login directly as root is simplier, but it's considered as a newbie mistake by any linux user/sysadmin :)

Keep in mind that a single space in root can f**k up a system

~#mkdir /test
~#touch /test/foo
~#rm -rf / test
~#rm: cannot remove 'test': No such file or directory

DOH !

HAILtoSTARSCREAM

@sano I need to login as root in winscp so I can edit some cfg files.

@mitu tried that before and just tried it again, always the same "Access denied"

Sano

@hailtostarscream
You may just use SCP protocol in WinSCP and configure a sudo -s as shell in winscp.
See here : https://winscp.net/eng/docs/faq_su
Edit : Sorry if I seem to give you answers on questions you didn't ask, but basically what you want to do is "wrong", so I try to provide alternatives.

HAILtoSTARSCREAM

No it's fine I appreciate it. I also tried that before in winscp. Still get permission denied when i try to save an edited cfg file. This build just won't give me root access and I am going crazy.

HAILtoSTARSCREAM

@sano Ok I finally realized I had to remove the # in the PermitRootLogin line. I faintly remembered that removing # is a thing but I haven't used my pi in a looong time so I forgot. Also it is not mentioned here: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/FAQ#why-cant-i-ssh-as-root-anymore

Thank you for trying to help me @Sano @mitu

mitu

@hailtostarscream Such modifications require that you know what you're doing. As @sano said, a simple error - as root - might not be so simple.

dudleydes

@hailtostarscream Which cfg files requiring root access are you trying to edit?

There are usually better ways to edit these files in RetroPie. A common file that users like to edit is es_systems.cfg. Best practice here is to create a copy in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstationand edit this file. This will take precedence over the one in /etc/emulationstation.

More info: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/EmulationStation/#es_systemscfg-edits

HAILtoSTARSCREAM

Yeah it was that cfg, but I was about to do it the way you suggested. I just realized that I can't edit the file when I was testing something out and that made me try to get root access. I recently started this build from scratch with a pi3b+ and I remember in my previous build that I had several occasions where I needed Winscp root access. I just don't remember them exactly^^

One thing was because I use usbmount my video splashscreen sometimes would not trigger on startup, so I had to put my custom video splashscreen into the default folder or something like that. I think that required root access, but could be wrong.

dudleydes

@hailtostarscream You should be able to access that file using WinSCP. The es_systems.cfg in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation is symlinked to the one in /home/pi/.emulationstation so that changes in one file will be reflected in the other.

Please note that .emulationstation is a hidden folder so you would need to adjust the options in WinSCP to show hidden files.

HAILtoSTARSCREAM

@dudleydes Yes I already managed to get that going, thank you.

Another example where I needed root access was to edit the layout and other settings in the snes mini theme.

mitu

Both these settings can be done by copying the appropriate files into the /home/pi/.emulationstation directory, you don't need root access for that.

dudleydes

@hailtostarscream If you wish to create a custom version of a theme, then you can create a copy of the theme folder from /etc/emulationstation/themes/ into /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/themes/. The themes folder may need to be created.

Alternatively, you can download the theme from the relevant Github repo and place it in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/themes/. For example, the snes mini theme can be found at https://github.com/ruckage/es-theme-snes-mini.