Given "sudo su" when asked for root password

acschnabel · 09-28-2011, 08:44 PM

I'm taking over a web server that was built on CentOS and I'm right now trying to get everything straight. I am NOT a linux person and will be looking for someone to manage that aspect of it once I am at that point.

The previous contracts who had the server are sending me just enough information to make me work to figure out the rest. I've got a password file for the server but it doesn't contain a root password. I asked them for the password and their guy responded with "sudo su".

So, what does that mean in terms of root access? I have a seperate account that I can log in with and get to everything but when the time comes that I need root access (installing SSL certificate SOON), am I going to be able to do so?

Thanks!
Tony.

chrism01 · 09-28-2011, 08:54 PM

If the /etc/sudoers file has your normal user setup correctly, then that cmd will switch you into root user's acct.
http://linux.die.net/man/8/sudo
http://linux.die.net/man/5/sudoers
http://linux.die.net/man/8/visudo
http://linux.die.net/man/1/su

Try

Code:

sudo su

# then try
cat /etc/sudoers

to find out exactly what version you have, run these cmds

Code:

uname -a

cat /etc/*release*

NB: Linux IS case sensitive
HTH

acschnabel · 09-28-2011, 09:02 PM

Perfect, I sort of figured out that was the case, but your post shed a lot of light. sudoers file shows my account can run as root, so I'm good there.

Thanks for the help.

chrism01 · 09-28-2011, 09:13 PM

Using your version info as above (2nd cmd), see the relevant SysAdmin manual/HOWTO here http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion_index.html

bonixavier · 09-28-2011, 09:17 PM

Do some research and do some things too:
- remove other accounts from /etc/sudoers
- disable root ssh logins
- delete all user accounts no longer needed
- change the passwords of all users and root

That can save you some headaches.

acschnabel · 09-28-2011, 09:20 PM

@bonixavier.. that's precisely what I was working on.

@Chris.. thanks for the link. I appreciate all the help I can get!

snooly · 09-28-2011, 09:56 PM

You might be better off using "sudo su -" rather than "sudo su". This will make sure that your root shell is using root's environment, rather than your user environment.

One difference would be that if you use "sudo su -", the root shell will use the dotfiles in /root instead of the dotfiles in /home/username.

chrism01 · 09-28-2011, 10:11 PM

There's a good cli tutorial http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz