how do i login to root?

[jett]

i tried doing this at the command ling
su
then i typed my password
but it said
su: Authentication failure
Sorry.
why is this?
does ubuntu have a default password?
is this not the password i made in the beginning?

[koldrakan]

you have set a root-pass and a pass for your user, you have to type the root-pass

[scorp123]

i tried doing this at the command ling
su

Direct access to "root" is disabled in Ubuntu and Ubuntu-like Linux distros. You have to use "sudo", e.g.

Code: Select all

sudo command-to-be-run-as-root

[manishk]

Just adding to what scorp123 said...

So, instead of su you must type

Code: Select all

sudo su

then give YOUR password

[veloct]

One thing you can do is also,

Code: Select all

sudo passwd

This will ask you to set a root password. You'll still use the password you set during install (user password) to open synaptic etc. because it is Ubuntu based so it will use sudo for most operations but you will be able to su in a terminal to root.

HTH

[scorp123]

Code: Select all

sudo su

then give YOUR password

I didn't mention this possibility with purpose. Chances are that newbies will hose their systems with an open root shell ...

[veloct]

As long as we mention the consequences of such actions when we post those type of suggestions, I think it's fine. That way if they do hose their system is their fault and they can't say that they weren't told what could happen.

[Fragadelic]

Code: Select all

sudo su

then give YOUR password

I didn't mention this possibility with purpose. Chances are that newbies will hose their systems with an open root shell ...

I use sudo su all the time but then again, I've been running linux since '97 and have also been employed in the past as a systems admin.

[scorp123]

I use sudo su all the time but then again, I've been running linux since '97 and have also been employed in the past as a systems admin.

Well, I wasn't talking about anyone specific when I said "chances are that newbies will hose their systems with an open root shell", it's just to make people aware that one stupid command might have drastic consequences.

When I was a noob back in 1996 I once wanted to get rid of some stupid temporary "dot" files that my home folder got filled up with. Some of my attempts were stopped with an "access denied" error, so I switched to root and entered a rather stupid command that had the words "rm", "-rf" and ".*" in them (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!) ...

Quiz: What happens if you as root type in such a command as above? Right, thanks to "-rf" and ".*" it won't stay in the $HOME directory but also go upwards (".." is included in ".*" !!!) and continue its deletion orgy there ....

That day I learned about the values of having good working backups ....

[Fragadelic]

lol

Just for giggles, do this on a test partition without any other mounted partitions or network drives and see how far it gets:

rm -rf /

Similar results to yours except that you start at the right place first off - lol.