As I documented in this general support thread, unraid 6.9.1 requires the root account to have a password for many functions to work. I've been able to run unraid with no root password (and without the friction this causes) for over a decade. Nothing in my circumstances or practices has required changing this now.

 

A root password is required by

• ssh
• samba connections from windows 10
• web UI

 

Root passwords are not required by

• telnet
• console access

 

Please either revert to the behavior of previous unraid builds that don't require a root password, or make this configurable.

 

Thanks,

- Eric

 

This was an intentional change documented in the 6.9.0 release notes:
  https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Release_Notes/Unraid_OS_6.9.0#SSH_Improvements

 

If you would like to see more of the security changes that are coming, along with some of the rationale, take a look at the first post in the 6.9.2 announce thread: