Had Ubuntu Installed And Realized That I Don't Know Root Password

I found an old laptop that has centos 5.5 installed. I reset the root password, but I need to reset the gui password. Is there a way to view this password or reset it? I have not worked with Linux over 5 years and am rusty on all the commands

Hi, I forgot my password so went into root to change it.

From grub menu, Ubuntu : advanced options : ubuntu recovery : network : root

input passwd then typed in a new password and re-entered password. rebooted.

Tried to uninstall Firefox from software centre but the new password was not accepted for authentication.

Could anyone advise what the problem could be or suggest what I may have done wrong. The password appeared to be accepted ok in root. Thanks

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about how to give sudo privileges to a user that log in via public key without password.

I created a normal user and I added this user to the "visudo" folder with ALL privileges.

when the user is logged in the system via public key and the user wants to become a root, a password is requested but i don't want to type the password.

Also to add the public key to the root it is not possible because i track the user log in in the system and if they log via root i cannot do that.

Thank you in advance.

Wow, I got my new Linux pc yesterday and it's very very fast. It's faster than my new MacBook.
So I go to the user account which also says administrator so I'm presuming that's the root owner?????? and I typed in my name and changed the password. The guy who sold it to me named the password user and the computer user. Yet when I go to the terminal my username and computer is still called user@user
How do I change the root password and computer name?

Wow, I got my new Linux pc yesterday and it's very very fast. It's faster than my new MacBook.
So I go to the user account which also says administrator so I'm presuming that's the root owner?????? and I typed in my name and changed the password. The guy who sold it to me named the password user and the computer user. Yet when I go to the terminal my username and computer is still called user@user
How do I change the root password and computer name?

I have been getting permission denied issues when trying to log into as root. I have set my password and when I type su - root and enter in my password I keep getting either password incorrect when I know I am typing it in correctly or acess permission denied from su. Can anyone explain what I am doing wrong. I am trying to get into /etc/passwd for homework assignment and I get permission denied when logged in as my user. Any help will be great. I have in the past been able to logg in to root but now I cant seem to get into it. This is a new install of ubuntu 14

Hi all,

I am slackware 14.0 user. Recently I face one problem. As a root i can change one of my normal user's (assuming Peter) password. However, when I login as Peter, and try to change the password, the system does not allow me to renew my password.


root@slackwa /etc# ls -la | grep shadow
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow 9 Nov 29 2013 gshadow
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Jun 20 2013 gshadow-
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow 2272 Apr 12 22:44 shadow
-rw------- 1 root root 2274 Apr 12 21:40 shadow-
root@slackwa /etc# ls -la | grep passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2362 Apr 12 12:58 passwd
-rw------- 1 root root 2306 Jan 8 17:38 passwd-
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2305 Aug 11 2014 passwd~


peter@slackwa ~$ which passwd
/usr/bin/passwd
peter@slackwa ~$ ls -la /usr/bin/passwd
-rws--x--x 1 root root 68725 Sep 14 2012 /usr/bin/passwd*

peter@slackwa ~$ passwd
Changing password for peter
Old password:
Incorrect password for peter.
The password for peter is unchanged.

One thing I can assure is the password I input is correct. I have another slackware 14 running on Dell R410, but it does not has this problem.


Please kindly advice. Thank you.

I just booted my PC in Vector Linux 7.0 Standard Live Edition. It is a bootable version of Linux that requires no installation. I am currently booting of a DVD-RW. The problem I am running into is the default password for root has already been set. It didn't prompt me to create a user or password at any point. In fact the first time I booted it all that happened was the Operating System loaded up. All I have done since them is run a portable netbeans and try to access the hard drive. When I tried to access the hard drive I got the following error.

Authentication is required to mount the device
An application is attempting to perform an action that requires privileges. Authentication as the super user is required to perform this action.
Password for root: _______???______

I found a few password suggestions on forms like root and vector, but these didn't work. If you would like to experiment with the OS burn it to DVD. See if you can figure out the solution to the problem. Here is the download link: http://vectorlinux.com/downloads

I am using debian 7.7 stable and when I open the root terminal it asks for the password.

But if I open it again, I get the message: 'Granted permissions without asking for password. The /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator program was started with the privileges of the root user without the need to ask for a password, due to your system's authentication mechanism setup'.

Oh, really? Because I don't remember setting up any 'authentication mechanism setup'.
How can I change this so the root terminal always asks for the password?
Do I have a trojan already? Because I installed the OS just a few days ago.

Thanks very much.

I first did the "try it", running it from the CD. I had the option to install from there and did. I cannot download any thing. My user name is John and there are 5 dots in the password space? My version is: ubuntu 14.04 lts. I was not able to change the root to read-write so I could change the password. Nothing worked unbuntu does connect to my wifi.
I'm a real newbie but what I 've tried in ubuntu has impressed me.
Help please