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sudo” means superuser do. “sudo” will prompt for “Password:”. Please specify user password
As you have noticed during the Ubuntu installation there was no question about the root password, as you might have been used to see during other Linux distribution installation process.Because of this your root accout is inactive.
If you want to enable root account (which is not recommended) enter the following command.
$sudo passwd root
This will prompt for a new root password and once you confirm it, you can start using the root account to login.
If you want to disable root account in ubuntu you need to lock the root account by using the following command
$sudo passwd -l root
If you want to work on a root console you’d better use the following command
$sudo -i
Tags: disable root account ubuntu, enable root account ubuntu, Security, sudo ubuntuYou may also be interested in...
September 29th, 2006 at 3:36 am
If you want to get kind of dangerous, you can use
sudo bash
This of course allows you to work in the current shell as root.
October 17th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
am i the only one that knows that the root account is there, you just have to (#sudo passwd) to give it a password
anyway id recommend you use sudo unless you are doing heavy admin tasks
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 am
I don’t mean to start a flame war, but am I the only one who sees this as r00table as h3ll?
March 15th, 2007 at 3:16 am
A trick I discovered. I tried su, no dice and ubuntu likes to sudo everything, so I did “sudo du” supplied MY password, and bam, root prompt # w00t!
April 10th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Anyone heard of “sudo -s”? i use that when working longer as admin, just to save the time typing sudo every time.
No “sudo bash”, no passwd.
root is safer if it has NO password. BUT make sure, ya know, don’t use “123″ as your user’s password
that would be the same as if root had that…
July 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I followed the instructions as printed above, but get a “The system administrator is not allowed to login from this screen” error when booting/login.
Do I misunderstand this feature?
September 9th, 2007 at 11:57 am
After a fresh install I want to run apt-get. Have to do it as root. Asks me for root password. No root password as above. So type ‘$sudo passwd root’ Get asked for password. Entering nothing not acceptable. So need password to set password.
Jesus wept.
September 26th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
vadim@ubuntu:~$ sudo su
Password: [enter your user password here]
root@ubuntu:/home/vadim# passwd root
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
————————————-
Hope this helps!
April 13th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Re: exasperated,
when ur asked for password using sudo, u enter your own user password on whichever user ur logged in with, not the root password.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
done everything thats above, got a root password going in the terminal but… going into x-windows, try do anything that requires an administrator password or anything, the root password that i specified in the terminal (and successfully used root there as well) doesnt work.
any ideas?
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
every time i write sudo i get ask for a password and then i cant write anyting ,cant only do enter witsh tells me sorry, try again can anyone help me
May 4th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I’ve wasted more time trying to figure out how to gain admin access to MY OWN DAMN SYSTEM… You can say whatever you want about M$, but at least with XP I have control of my own system. This is just ridiculous. Can’t install anything because I don’t have access to.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Once you’ve done the ’sudo passwd root’ stuff to set a password for superuser open the menu System / Administration / Login Window, go to the Security tab and check the box “Allow local system administrator login”.
And off you go.
Cheers
May 13th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Thanks thierry, it helped me get around the problem, thanks