Hello:

I am new here and unfortunately not too experienced with Linux. I've neglected learning using the OS for way too long

Anyway I am an assistant in the Civil Engineering and Environmental Science department at Ohio State University. I'm working on some old Linux boxes that a former assistant left here.

I have the root login and password, but I need to change the password so that we can have a standard one and distribute it to other administrators in the department.

Can someone explain how to change it ? One is running Mandrake linux 9.1 and two other machines are running Redhat 8 I believe.

Thanks in advance,

- Joe

login as root with the passwords you have
then bring up a terminal (possibly xterm) and type passwd

What towhalc said.

I would not recommend you doing this. In-general its a bad idea to login as root into linux box. My suggestion is to create a new account for management and add it to sudoers file so that they can execute root commands if they need to. lookup manual for 'sudo' command for more info.

but to create a new account he has to be root anyway

Thanks guys

Yeah, the only thing I am doing with root is changing the password

The former system administrator has left the school so it needs to be changed

I can delete his user and just create others for the rest of us in the department