If you try to run VLC under root user on Linux, you will be blocked with message : "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).". While it is a good security practice to not run non-system executables under root privileges, but at times you might need the exception. Here's a solution to allow VLC and cvlc (command-line version of vlc) run under the root user-account.