Password lost?

[losingle]

My admin password some how is changing. Happened earlier and I went with a complete new install. Got everything going again and was installing gparted and it asked for the installer asked for the password and won't accept it? SU also won't accept it. However SUDO allowed me to install gparted. I really dont want to re-install everything again. What going on?? help .

[vinnywright]

Re: Password lost?

you may be hitting your caps lock wile typing

VINNY

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Password lost?

Now quite sure what the situation is here. Unless you have specifically enabled the root account, su won't work. You can su to a non-root account, but just su by itself shouldn't work.

sudo (or kdesudo, for a gui application) will let you run as root IF you are doing so from an account that is enabled for sudo in the /etc/sudoers file, or if your account is a member of a group enabled in /etc/sudoers. That should have been taken care of during the original installation. The password you would use is the same password you use to login to that account. There is no separate admin password, unless you have set one in a non-standard configuration.

If you need to specifically enable sudo for an individual account, you can do so by editing the /etc/sudoers file. You would need to use the visudo command, and run that as sudo. You would add a line like this:

username ALL=(ALL) ALL

There is a man page for the sudoers file that gives more details.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Password lost?

SU also won't accept it. However SUDO allowed me to . . .

SU will ask for a password but won't accept one. That is normal behaviour (I just tried it to make sure). Use SUDO.

[vinnywright]

Re: Password lost?

SU also won't accept it. However SUDO allowed me to . . .

SU will ask for a password but won't accept one. That is normal behaviour (I just tried it to make sure). Use SUDO.

Aaaa but

vinny@desktop:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for vinny:
root@desktop:/home/vinny#

will

VINNY

[Ole Juul]

Re: Password lost?

Indeed "sudo su" will!

I'd forgotten about that. I've been spending a lot of time in BSD land lately, so I was thinking that the OP was assuming that a plain SU might work. I've been making that mistake lately and then scratching my head.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Password lost?

What the OP is experiencing is one of the common differences between distros. Some enable su by default some don't.

Easy enough to "fix";

sudo passwd

although this is not recommended. Rather sudo -i is the preferred method.

I realize all you responders to this thread know this already, but a noob on the browse may not!