[colug-432] Change Root Password

[Rick Hornsby]

On Dec 19, 2012, at 10:13, Thomas Cranston <thomas.w.cranston at gmail.com> wrote:

> How do I change root password? (I am root!)
> 
> Mint 14.1
> 
> tom at tom-Inspiron-1520-mint ~ $ sudo passwd
> Enter new UNIX password: 
> Retype new UNIX password: 
> passwd: password updated successfully
> tom at tom-Inspiron-1520-mint ~ $ 
> 

According to that prompt, you're not root.  You're tom, indicated by the bit before the @.  To change your (tom's) password from that prompt, don't use sudo.  You don't need it unless you're trying to execute a command AS root (or in some cases, another user).  I believe what you did using sudo was to change the password for the root account.

Side note: basically, never log in as root. Unless the system is so borked there is no other way to get in. Log in as yourself, and use sudo to execute administrative tasks that require root privs.  In some rare cases, switching to root for a few minutes is easier - 

$ sudo su - root

When you're finished acting as root, log out of root's account

# exit

The difference between the command "rm -rf *" executed as accidentally in /bin as you, vs as root is, well, a nice big chunk of your system and critical programs going *poof* :)

> I restarted computer, but login does not recognize the new password.
> Was able to login with original password.


You rarely, rarely need to restart Linux. Certainly restarting isn't going to make any impact whatsoever on a password changed or not changed.

-rick




> Tom
> _______________________________________________
> colug-432 mailing list
> colug-432 at colug.net
> http://lists.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug-432