Behaviour after x3 unsuccessful sudo password attempts
 

I initially attempted to ssh into a box running mythbuntu (I'm absolutely certain I used the correct password); I subsequently opened a terminal on the mythbuntu box and attempted to sudo <commmand> and the password was rejected again. What is the default behaviour of ubuntu? Does it lock the user out for a period of time or do I need to do some other recovery action to gain access to root commands again?

What version are you using?

Mythbuntu 14.04.1. After I re-booted the lock-out was removed enabling access to commands.

In that case I think you can log in as root by simply booting to recovery with no password needed.

When you get the prompt run;
This should cast some light on the problem.

You may want to take a look at /etc/group to make sure you are still in the sudoers group.

The gratuitous # would be the place to reset your password too.

If you can't figure out anything else this would also be the place to create a new user.

Why pipe the log to "sudo"? I suspect there's a typo there and you meant to pipe the result to "grep"...

If my guess is wrong then I have something to learn here...

You certainly do have something to learn. You need to learn that I really am good at screwing up when typing.

Thanks. I fixed it.