What is the default root password?
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin), 64 bit. Nowhere was I asked to set password for root. I just installed AccuRev SCM software. It was installed under the /root folder by default. Now I try do something on that folder. I tried with su to switch to root, but I don’t know its password. Should I always use sudo or get the default root password, if any? How do I create a launcher for software installed inside the /root directory?
this lameass website won’t let me answer, but the correct answer is: sudo usermod root -p password; sudo passwd root; then enter the new password. presto, root is unlocked and you can now su/login with root
How idiotic things can get — su is disabled, sudo is not installed, this distribution is used as a base for mssql server, the instructions say you need to sudo open some network ports to enable MSDTC. Back to square 1.
4 Answers 4
By default, the root account is accessed by sudo.
For a complete discussion in the topic, and information for how to set a root password, see: RootSudo — Community Ubuntu Documentation
With that said, it is extremely unlikely you need to set a root password, I advise you use
Or for graphical applications, use gksu
«extremely unlikely you need to set a root password»: I do not agree. If one is logged in as «joeblo», and then needs to move their /home/joeblo directory aside to move in a new one from a previous installation. They cannot do that safely from their own user account. They must do that from some other user account. Yes, they could sudo and then create a second user account, and then sudo and do the move, but that is a waste of effort. This happens to me every time I load a new version of Linux since I want to replace the installer-generated /home/joeblo directory with my previous one.
Bodhi.zazen has by far the best answer; boot to recovery mode (wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveryMode). If you have a corrupted groups file and can’t sudo (sometimes there is no substitute for being root).
at lindhe — askubuntu.com/questions/11825/… . In addition gksu is in theory better for integrating and security with graphical applications and sudo / su are intended for command line interface (IMHO).
Password for root is not set in Ubuntu which means the root login is disabled by default.
The user account created during Ubuntu installation is associated with all sudo capabilities. You could use sudo for commands that require root privileges in Ubuntu terminal.
However you can enable the root account and set a password for it. To do so use:
Firstly you will be asked for your current user password and after this you will be asked for the new password twice (new and retype password) as your new root password.
I couldn’t remember ever setting up my root password so I couldn’t remember it and $ su root was failing with every password I tried. I ran your command $ sudo passwd root and it worked perfectly. Thanks for a great answer.
You should still configure the root password for Ubuntu. Since it’s disabled by default and you create a user password for all admin tasks on installation, booting into single user mode will give access to a root shell — even if your boot options have been set to prompt for one. It doesn’t have one to ask for unless you set it
sudo has benefits, but not having a root password set can also be troublesome. I had a machine last week that failed to boot up, showing the message «Give root password for maintenance (or press Control-D to continue):» The problem is that the machine did not have a root password set, and just pressing enter would only display the message again, as would control-D, so I had to take the hard drive out and access it from another machine to fix it.
By default the Ubuntu installer does not set up a root password and therefore you don’t get the ability to log in as root. Instead you are given the ability to perform tasks with superuser privileges using sudo.
While you can create a password for the root account allowing you to log in as root with su , there are some distinct benefits to using sudo.
Sudo is an alternative to giving people a root password in order to perform superuser duties. In a default Ubuntu install the person who installed the OS is given «sudo» permission by default.
Anybody with «sudo» permission may perform something «as a superuser» by pre-pending sudo to their command. For instance, to run apt-get dist-upgrade as a superuser, you could use:
By default, sudo will ask you for your own account password when performing this. This helps security. This is remembered for a few minutes so if you have a few tasks to do with sudo it will only ask you for your password on the first.
You will see the above usage of sudo pretty much anywhere you read a tutorial about Ubuntu on the web. It’s an alternative to doing this.
su apt-get dist-upgrade exit With sudo, you choose in advance which users have sudo access. There is no need for them to remember a root password, as they use their own password. If you have multiple users, you can revoke one’s superuser access just by removing their sudo permission, without needing to change the root password and notify everyone of a new password. You can even choose which commands a user is allowed to perform using sudo and which commands are forbidden for that user. And lastly, if there is a security breach it can in some cases leave a better audit trail showing which user account was compromised.
Not having a root password makes brute force attacks on the root account impossible: this is relevant if you allow login over SSH. Instead, an attacker would need to know a local account name.
Sudo makes it easier to perform a single command with superuser privileges. With su , you permanently drop to a superuser shell which must be exited using exit or logout . This can lead to people staying in the superuser shell for longer than necessary just because it’s more convenient than logging out and in again later.
Getting a root shell
With sudo, you still have the option of opening a permanent (interactive) superuser shell with the command:
. and this can still be done without any root password, because sudo gives superuser privileges to the su command.
And similarly, instead of su — for a login shell you can use sudo su — or even sudo -i .
However when doing so you just need to be aware that you are acting as a superuser for every command. It’s a good security principle not to stay as a superuser for longer than necessary, just to lessen the possibility of accidentally causing some damage to the system (without it, you can only damage files your user owns).
Just to clarify, you can, if you choose, give the root user a password allowing logins as root, if you specifically want to do things this way instead. I just wanted to let you know about the Ubuntu convention of preferring sudo instead and let you know that there is an alternative.
What is Ubuntu Default Root Password?
In the Linux system, the root user, also known as the superuser or administrator, is a unique user account. The root account is available in all Unix or Linux systems, which helps you access every command and resource of the machine without much effort. But since you are switching to Ubuntu from another computer, you might wonder what the ubuntu default root password is or how to change the default ubuntu password. Knowing this is important since a root account lets you access most system features easily. In Ubuntu systems, the root account is disabled by default, so you need to change its password at the earliest to access its main features. You can try several methods to change the default ubuntu root password, and in this post, we will share those methods with you.
How to Temporarily Switch to Root?
You will need sudo privileges to perform system administrative tasks on your Ubuntu system. With Sudo, authorized users can run programs as regular users or root users. When you install the Ubuntu system, there will be an initial user installed by Ubuntu that will be a member of the sudo community. And if you have not created another user yet, then the chances are that member is the user you are currently logged in on your system. And the user already had the administrative privileges of your Ubuntu system. To use the root user privileges temporarily, run the following command:
sudo command-name
The first time you use the command, your system may want you to enter the user password. You can temporarily switch to the root account during the current login session by using sudo su or sudo -i followed by the user password:
You can run the whoami command that will verify if the user is changed: whoami and the output will show root.
This step will allow you to disable the root account on your Ubuntu system, but since you want to change the root password, too, you need to follow the next section of this post.
How to Change the Default ubuntu Root Password?
The previous section has helped to switch to the root account and disable it temporarily. But the root user account is still there, and it hasn’t been removed yet. You cannot log in as root because there is no password set for the root account, or you don’t know a password that will help you access the root account. Also, if you need to enable the root account, you can just set up a password for that account using the passwd command in the Ubuntu system. Run the command with Sudo privilege on your Ubuntu system if you want to change the password of your root user account:
sudo passwd root
You will be prompted to enter a new password and confirm the same. But when you are entering a password, make sure that the password is unique and powerful because, without a strong password, your system will be vulnerable. A powerful password should have at least 16 characters that are alphanumeric, which means uppercase and lowercase characters, a special character, a number, etc. But when you type the password, it won’t show on the screen; instead, it will look like this:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
This is the whole procedure of changing the password for the root users, and that will help you log in to your account in the future. To log in as a root user, open the terminal and enter the following command:
$ sudo bash, or you can enter $ sudo -s, and when you provide your password, it will let you access your user account.
Conclusion
So, there is no ubuntu default password because the account is locked by default. And since there is no ubuntu default root password, you will have to create one by yourself with the help of the steps we have mentioned above. Not only does this apply to Ubuntu but many other Linux systems. Linux permits a regular user account to log in as a user with root privileges; that is what we call sudo. This is done because it increases the security of the Linux system.
People are also reading: