change root password

Pedroski · 04-28-2013, 06:01 AM

Hi!

Something has gone wrong in Ubuntu 13.04. My vpn won't work. This is a problem in China, or America, where the governments restrict what you may look up. I keep getting strange error messages. Have a look:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...3&goto=newpost

So, Astrill support said, load Teamviewer, they can look at my computer and fix the problem.

So I want to know how to change the root password. They may need it to access whatever, so I'd prefer not to give them the one I normally use.

Sigg3.net · 04-28-2013, 06:34 AM

In Ubuntu you can change root password using:

Code:

$ sudo passwd root

I would think twice about letting strangers connect to my box though.

Pedroski · 04-28-2013, 06:43 AM

Yeah, but I really don't know how to fix the problem, and I do need Astrill. Also, I don't have anything to hide, but what they might put on the computer does worry me somewhat.

273 · 04-28-2013, 07:13 AM

In Ubuntu you don't normally log in as root so unless you have made some changes to that the password they will need is your password to run sudo. to change your password just type "passwd" (without the quotes) and follow the prompts. Then change the password back in the same way once they're done.

chrism01 · 04-28-2013, 07:25 AM

If you don't trust them, don't give them access; get them to walk you through it.
Giving them your sudo passwd gives them root equivalent access ....

Sigg3.net · 04-28-2013, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

If you don't trust them, don't give them access; get them to walk you through it.
Giving them your sudo passwd gives them root equivalent access ....

Or see what they do (take notes), reinstall completely from scratch and re-do the steps.

Pedroski · 04-28-2013, 05:36 PM

I think I'll just go back to Ubuntu 12.04

I had other problems, but Astrill worked!

273 · 04-28-2013, 06:07 PM

Well, 12.04 is the LTS version so it's a sensible choice if you don't want to deal with the problems of an upgrade until 2017.

Pedroski · 04-28-2013, 06:15 PM

What's LTS??

273 · 04-28-2013, 06:17 PM

Long Term Support -- it means that you get security and bug fixes until 2017. A normal Ubuntu release is only supported for, I think, 12 months after release then you are expected to upgrade to the next release.

Pedroski · 04-28-2013, 07:14 PM

Thanks. The only problem I have with the older version is, I have a wierd problem which no one can fix, and only goes away with the kernel version 3.59 3.6: if I unplug the dsl cable, my system crashes, every time. Fedora 18, which uses 3.6..... finally stopped doing this, but Ubuntu is still at 3.2 ....

I have reported this as a bug, but apparently very few people have this problem, so it's not a priority.