Solved - lost root password - but not as expected

ondoho · 10-13-2018, 01:52 AM

Irish66, root password or user password?
there's a difference.
'su' asks for your root password
'sudo' (and most pkexec stuff i believe) asks for your user password.

hazel · 10-13-2018, 08:19 AM

If you really get stuck, boot your installation disc, mount the hard drive on some suitable directory (for example /mnt) but don't chroot. Instead, just change mnt/etc/shadow to be writable, load it into some editor and carefully backspace out the root password. Make sure you reset the file to read-only afterwards.

Then boot the hard drive and you should be able to log in as root without a password so that you can set a new one.

If it's your own password you've forgotten, you can deal with it the same way.

JeremyBoden · 10-13-2018, 03:30 PM

In Mint you can simply use

Code:

sudo passwd root

You will be asked for your current password.
Choose a good password for root and type it in (twice).
You can then log in as root.

Alternatively,

Code:

sudo -i

You will be asked for your current password.

These two ways of running as root will use slightly different environments.