Re: [gNewSense-users] I did something stupid - root password locked :-(

[andrei raevsky]

Dear friends,

Dennis and Karl:

Nope, I did not do that as I was not aware of this option.  I never
used Ubuntu in the past, I only used Debian and then added gNewSense
to (most) of my computers.  Thanks a lot for the tip.  Since my friend
is a total newbie to GNU/Linux, instead of giving him back root access
I was thinking of just doing 'passwd' in the root shell and create a
password for myself on his machine.  From the Ubuntu doc Michael
pointed out to me I get that while this might not be the most
convenient thing for him right now (as soon as he is more comfortable
I will give him the admin rights back) it is easier for me to keep an
eye on what he will be doing.  That would not be a problem, right?

Michael:

Thanks for the link to the Ubuntu doc.  This sudo thing is new to me,
but it seems to make sense, in particular that some stuff still seems
needs a root password (like stopping or killing a process).

Jay:

Why should I copy the password hash and not just simply delete the
password as I did (which obviously did not work - but I wonder why it
did not)?

Cheers,

Andrei

On 2/21/07, Karl Goetz <address@hidden> wrote:
> andrei raevsky wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I just installed gNewSense on a friend's computer.  The Ubuntu
> > installer asks for the creation of a user with root-type admin access.
> > I created that account under my friend's name, then when I wanted to
> > create another account for his brother I realized that my friend would
> > have full admin access.  So I used his account to create another
> > account for his brother and then I took away my friend's admin
> > privileges.
> >
>
> Try rebooting in rescue mode (hit escape when grub is booting). it
> should boot directly into a root shell, where you can type `adduser
> friendlogin admin`
> kk
>
> --
> Karl Goetz
> User of gNewSense: Free as in Freedom - http://www.gnewsense.org
> Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam
> User of Debian, The Universal Operating System - http://www.debian.org