Multiple Sessions as Root?

[<ruggeri uchicago edu>]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I cannot seem to 
find it in the documentation, or in searches of the listhost 
(and google of course).

If I login as a user, and then switch users to login again as 
the same user, GDM asks me if I just want to continue my 
session.  However, if I try to do this with root, it just 
spawns another session without asking anything at all.  This 
is undesirable, because it means I can't get back to my 
original root session.

This manifests itself if I want to start some task as root, 
and then let another user login to briefly do something else.

Anyway, I'm not sure this is the intended functionality or if 
I'm doing something wrong.  If you have any ideas, I'd really 
be grateful!

Sincerely,

-- Ned Ruggeri