how to get a superuser password?

budster13 · 02-08-2011, 10:41 AM

I have a regular password and a masterpassword, but sometimes I am being asked for a superuserpassword? I have no scripting experience and a very basic idea of how linux works. I am trying to get enough of a handle on this OS, so I can use it comfortably. I know you must have had this question posted many times, but I am very new to Fedora 14 (or any Linux Distribution. So thank you ahead of time to anyone can put this into into my MICROSOFT brain.

budster13

reed9 · 02-08-2011, 11:11 AM

Masterpassword? Never heard of it. You should have a password for your user and the root password. Root being all powerful and is sometimes called the superuser. When you installed Fedora you would have been prompted to create a root password.

jdblackb · 02-08-2011, 11:36 AM

Master password would be the password for Root. To see if you know it, open a terminal and type su then hit enter. You will be prompted for a password. Superuser is much like an administrator account in Microshaft. It is the only user that can make system wide configuration changes. Hope this helps

Tinkster · 02-08-2011, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by budster13

I have a regular password and a masterpassword, but sometimes I am being asked for a superuserpassword? I have no scripting experience and a very basic idea of how linux works. I am trying to get enough of a handle on this OS, so I can use it comfortably. I know you must have had this question posted many times, but I am very new to Fedora 14 (or any Linux Distribution. So thank you ahead of time to anyone can put this into into my MICROSOFT brain.

budster13

Hi, welcome to LQ!

As others pointed out - there's no such thing as a "master password" in Linux.
Also it's bad practice to supply passwords in scripts. Rather have the script
executed from an ordinary account, and permit the use of sudo w/o a password.

Cheers,
Tink