sudo and su both disabled on my system

santhoshsd · 10-01-2008, 06:41 AM

I enabled my root account in ubuntu

and was editing /etc/sudoers, for doing that I had set its file permissions to 744.

now when I do su, I get an account expiration message

Code:

santhosh@santhosh-laptop:~$ su
Password: 
Your account has expired; please contact your system administrator
su: User account has expired
santhosh@santhosh-laptop:~$

and I am not able to execute sudo too.

Code:

santhosh@santhosh-laptop:~$ sudo vim /etc/sudoers 
sudo: /etc/sudoers is mode 0744, should be 0440

is there a way in which I can reset the permissions of /etc/sudoers file or reenable the root account ?

Thank you

pixellany · 10-01-2008, 07:00 AM

You can boot into single-user mode and get root powers with no password required. From there you can fix things.

Reboot
When you see the GRUB menu, hit any key to stop the countdown.
With the desired option highlighted, hit "e" for edit, then select the kernel line, "e" again. Add the word "single" (no quotes) at the end.
Hit enter and then "b" to boot.

Tobler · 10-01-2008, 08:10 AM

To fix root account expiration, run command:

Code:

 $ chage -E -1 root

(read man chage)

And you know already how to fix /etc/sudoers file.
Btw, use command:

Code:

 $ sudo visudo

to edit your sudoers file. It will handle file locking and permissions correctly.