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Can't get superuser status

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:11 pm
by eamrnr
My login password for Linux Mint used to work for me to get superuser status, but today I tried to do that in Terminal and it told me that the password could not be authenticated. Anyone know why this has happened and how I can fix it?


Thanks,

Ed

Re: Can't get superuser status

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:56 am
by bjornmu
It works for running commands with sudo or tools from the desktop that needs it, but if you tried 'su' to change to the superuser, that requires the real root password which may be different. But you can get around that by doing 'sudo su' and give your password.

Re: Can't get superuser status

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:31 am
by nomko
eamrnr wrote:My login password for Linux Mint used to work for me to get superuser status, but today I tried to do that in Terminal and it told me that the password could not be authenticated. Anyone know why this has happened and how I can fix it?
What were you trying to do in the terminal? Which command? As you already might noticed, all passwords typed in the terminal stay blank. Have you tried re-typing your password? And still the same result?

Normally, when you want to execute a command in the terminal as superuser (sudo or su), your own user password provides you temporary root (sudo/su) privileges.

I can provide you some links with identical issues. It might provide you with a solution:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/152793/p ... on-failure
http://askubuntu.com/questions/150181/c ... a-password