VLC is not supposed to be run as root. Sorry. – Solution

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in Linux, Troubleshootings

Today i captured one tutorial using recordmydesktop utility on my backtrack and decided to view it but unfortunately backtrack 5 Linux didn’t include a good media player to do entertainment :-D when you get bored with dirty work.

Anyways, i installed vlc using following command ;
aptitude install vlc

And tried to run vlc as root i got error on my terminal ;
vlc

VLC is not supposed to be run as root. Sorry.
If you need to use real-time priorities and/or privileged TCP ports
you can use vlc-wrapper (make sure it is Set-UID root and
cannot be run by non-trusted users first).

This error says straight forward vlc can not be run as root privileged user. What to do now? Don’t be panic. Here is the hacked solution :-D
vi /usr/bin/vlc
search for geteuid and replace it with getppid

Save file & Exit.

Now it should work, try to run it again ;-)

Note : This is a very bad practice to run certain application with administrative rights. Do it at your own risk! ;-)

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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

Khurram

It saved my time. I am able to run vlc from root user.

Thanks.

Reply

Glenn

Great!
I had tried to compile VLC with the option configure “./configure –enable-run-as-root” but it did not work.
When I saw this post, I used the “graphic version of Vi “sudo apt-get install vim-gnome” and gvim /usr/bin/vlc. With the search feature, I replaced geteuid with getppid, and like magic VLC is up and running.

A huge thanks for you!

Reply

Silentplay3r

That’s good.

Reply

adam

small and usefull
thks

Reply

crysis

Nice and clean. Running VLC on my root account.

Thanks and deep bow

Reply

setnakt

:O thanks ;)

Reply

Jitendra

Hey Thanks for your this suggestion
its working for me, since last couple of days i am facing the issue but now its resolve
Thanks a lot again

Reply

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