Ubuntu: root password not set???

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

I yesterday installed a laptop with Ubuntu Linux and I noticed it never asked for a root password. I only created an user with a password and that's it. When I try to login as root, no matter what I try, I can't login. Is there a default password set by Ubuntu install? Is there some sort of bootdisk that allows me to reset the root password, like there is for Windows NT?

**SPeedY_B** · January 12th, 2005

It's disabled by default, to enable it pop open a console and "sudo passwd root" then use "sudo passwd -l root" to lock it again at any point.

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

Thanks

But isn't this a enormous security breach? This means everyone with an useraccount on my laptop can change the root password, right? Or do they have to be a member of a specific user group? :confused:

**SPeedY_B** · January 12th, 2005

Apparently it was done to increase security

: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RootSudo/view

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

Well, to me it isn't increasing security, it's annoying, I just want to login as root whenever I like and run programs and the lot. Maybe in a server environment this is nice, but not for me. I've just began to understand the world of linux and this requires me to learn the entire security model again. I don't want to do that, so for me it's back to Slackware Linux instead.

**SPeedY_B** · January 12th, 2005

Why? when you can just enable the root acc' as I said...

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

After more careful reading I must admit I was wrong. I thought you could only sudo <app name> to run an app, but now I see you can enable root access so I can login as usual, like you said SPeedY_B

:blush:

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

What the heck? I was trying to compile Samba3, and it didn't find a (g)cc compiler. Turns out there is none installed! What a stupid distro.

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

This distro sucks donkey ass! According to the package manager gcc is installed, but it's installed someplace I don't know where it is. Now I will most definately move over to Slackware, at least Slack got it's things straight and most stuff works out of the box.

**SPeedY_B** · January 12th, 2005

You're giving up too easily

**Geffy** · January 12th, 2005

actually the first user created is a sort of "Admin" and is added to the root group so only that user should be able to execute the sudo passwd root command

not that I am trying to defend it, I still dont really class Linux as being an operating system

**X-Istence** · January 12th, 2005

Gcc has to be installed. And samba is in their package management tools. You are not supposed to compile from scratch.

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

Ah I see. And please explain why you don't class linux as an OS?

**SPeedY_B** · January 12th, 2005

We were just talking about it on IRC...

16:09 <@[ninja]> Linux isnt an os
16:10 <@SPeedY_B> well it's not a birthday cake..
16:10 <@SPeedY_B> unless you're meaning that it's a kernel
16:11 <@[ninja]> no, I just dont consider Linux to be in anyway an operating system
16:12 <@[ninja]> its an educational toy that can be used to demonstrate how an operating system could be built, but its not a proper operating system in its own right
16:14 <@SPeedY_B> wouldn't say it's a toy
16:14 <@SPeedY_B> but it definitely needs more focus
16:14 <@SPeedY_B> as it is rather "all over the place" at the moment on the whole.
16:14 <@[ninja]> its not ready for any kind of production use, and its far too divided
16:15 <@SPeedY_B> that's what guys like fedora and ubuntu are trying to fix though.
16:15 <@SPeedY_B> bit too late i reckon, will take a long time to turn around what's already been done
16:15 <@[ninja]> yeah, in time it might become an operating system, but I dont yet think it is
16:16 <@[ninja]> and I dont think any of the current window managers are ready for any kind of mainstream desktop usage
16:16 <@SPeedY_B> which is why fedora etc use a bastardisation of kde/gnome/whateverelsetheybakeintoit
16:17 <@[ninja]> kde and gnome, neither are ready
16:17 <@[ninja]> bluecurve is worse
16:17 <@SPeedY_B> kde's functional, gnome is pretty.
16:17 <@SPeedY_B> they need to combine
16:18 <@[ninja]> I wouldnt say KDE has the kinds of functionality that people expect from a mature GUI system like windows or quartz

I'm sure more could of been said, but it wasn't an in-depth discussion

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

Originally Posted by X-Istence

Gcc has to be installed. And samba is in their package management tools. You are not supposed to compile from scratch.

But why can't I execute gcc and [s|n]mbd?

**zeke_mo** · January 12th, 2005

Even more significantly, if root were enabled during install, the user would be required to forever remember the password they chose--even though they would rarely use it. Root passwords are often forgotten by users who are new to the Unix security model. (Matt Zimmerman)

For simple users like me

**X-Istence** · January 12th, 2005

Originally Posted by Glaanieboy

But why can't I execute gcc and [s|n]mbd?

Because you need to open up their package manager, select what you want, hit install, and let apt-get do it's job.

Then you can execute snmbd and nmbd and gcc if you wish. I know it is a pain, but this Linux distro is for the standard user who wnats to surf the web, and check his mail, and edit a few documents.

So for us more technical people, it is not a distro of choice. It is a mandrake like system, but stripped down for ease of use even more. Contains just what standard people need, nothing more nothing less.

**Glaanieboy** · January 12th, 2005

Hmm. So basically I would have to create a new user which I would use to login to Linux. The user I created suring install is a Power User of some sort with rights to sudo to root. Am I correct?

edit: This was in reply to zeke_mo
@the rest: I'll continue to play with it, I am too curious to pull it off again.

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #1
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Ubuntu: root password not set??? I yesterday installed a laptop with Ubuntu Linux and I noticed it never asked for a root password. I only created an user with a password and that's it. When I try to login as root, no matter what I try, I can't login. Is there a default password set by Ubuntu install? Is there some sort of bootdisk that allows me to reset the root password, like there is for Windows NT?

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #2
SPeedY_B I may actually be insane. Joined: March 2002 Location: Midlands, England Posts: 15,800 Reputation: 2877 Power: 310	It's disabled by default, to enable it pop open a console and "sudo passwd root" then use "sudo passwd -l root" to lock it again at any point. 1. SPeedYB.co.uk 2. CamPortal.co.uk 3. MacIRC.co.uk

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #4
SPeedY_B I may actually be insane. Joined: March 2002 Location: Midlands, England Posts: 15,800 Reputation: 2877 Power: 310	Apparently it was done to increase security : http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RootSudo/view 1. SPeedYB.co.uk 2. CamPortal.co.uk 3. MacIRC.co.uk

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #6
SPeedY_B I may actually be insane. Joined: March 2002 Location: Midlands, England Posts: 15,800 Reputation: 2877 Power: 310	Why? when you can just enable the root acc' as I said... 1. SPeedYB.co.uk 2. CamPortal.co.uk 3. MacIRC.co.uk

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #10
SPeedY_B I may actually be insane. Joined: March 2002 Location: Midlands, England Posts: 15,800 Reputation: 2877 Power: 310	You're giving up too easily 1. SPeedYB.co.uk 2. CamPortal.co.uk 3. MacIRC.co.uk

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January 12th, 2005	Top \| #3
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Thanks But isn't this a enormous security breach? This means everyone with an useraccount on my laptop can change the root password, right? Or do they have to be a member of a specific user group? :confused:

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #5
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Well, to me it isn't increasing security, it's annoying, I just want to login as root whenever I like and run programs and the lot. Maybe in a server environment this is nice, but not for me. I've just began to understand the world of linux and this requires me to learn the entire security model again. I don't want to do that, so for me it's back to Slackware Linux instead.

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #7
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	After more careful reading I must admit I was wrong. I thought you could only sudo <app name> to run an app, but now I see you can enable root access so I can login as usual, like you said SPeedY_B :blush:

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #8
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	What the heck? I was trying to compile Samba3, and it didn't find a (g)cc compiler. Turns out there is none installed! What a stupid distro.

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #9
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	This distro sucks donkey ass! According to the package manager gcc is installed, but it's installed someplace I don't know where it is. Now I will most definately move over to Slackware, at least Slack got it's things straight and most stuff works out of the box.

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #11
Geffy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 7,805 Reputation: 1490 Power: 217	actually the first user created is a sort of "Admin" and is added to the root group so only that user should be able to execute the sudo passwd root command not that I am trying to defend it, I still dont really class Linux as being an operating system  • blog • tumblog • lastfm • flickr • #rubyonrails • @twitter "I could be replaced with a very small shell script"

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #12
X-Istence * Joined: December 2001 Location: USA Posts: 6,496 Reputation: 2808 Power: 220	Gcc has to be installed. And samba is in their package management tools. You are not supposed to compile from scratch. An engineers technical notebook

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #13
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Ah I see. And please explain why you don't class linux as an OS?

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #14
SPeedY_B I may actually be insane. Joined: March 2002 Location: Midlands, England Posts: 15,800 Reputation: 2877 Power: 310	We were just talking about it on IRC... 16:09 <@[ninja]> Linux isnt an os 16:10 <@SPeedY_B> well it's not a birthday cake.. 16:10 <@SPeedY_B> unless you're meaning that it's a kernel 16:11 <@[ninja]> no, I just dont consider Linux to be in anyway an operating system 16:12 <@[ninja]> its an educational toy that can be used to demonstrate how an operating system could be built, but its not a proper operating system in its own right 16:14 <@SPeedY_B> wouldn't say it's a toy 16:14 <@SPeedY_B> but it definitely needs more focus 16:14 <@SPeedY_B> as it is rather "all over the place" at the moment on the whole. 16:14 <@[ninja]> its not ready for any kind of production use, and its far too divided 16:15 <@SPeedY_B> that's what guys like fedora and ubuntu are trying to fix though. 16:15 <@SPeedY_B> bit too late i reckon, will take a long time to turn around what's already been done 16:15 <@[ninja]> yeah, in time it might become an operating system, but I dont yet think it is 16:16 <@[ninja]> and I dont think any of the current window managers are ready for any kind of mainstream desktop usage 16:16 <@SPeedY_B> which is why fedora etc use a bastardisation of kde/gnome/whateverelsetheybakeintoit 16:17 <@[ninja]> kde and gnome, neither are ready 16:17 <@[ninja]> bluecurve is worse 16:17 <@SPeedY_B> kde's functional, gnome is pretty. 16:17 <@SPeedY_B> they need to combine 16:18 <@[ninja]> I wouldnt say KDE has the kinds of functionality that people expect from a mature GUI system like windows or quartz I'm sure more could of been said, but it wasn't an in-depth discussion 1. SPeedYB.co.uk 2. CamPortal.co.uk 3. MacIRC.co.uk

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #15
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Originally Posted by X-Istence Gcc has to be installed. And samba is in their package management tools. You are not supposed to compile from scratch. But why can't I execute gcc and [s\|n]mbd?

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January 12th, 2005	Top \| #16
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Even more significantly, if root were enabled during install, the user would be required to forever remember the password they chose--even though they would rarely use it. Root passwords are often forgotten by users who are new to the Unix security model. (Matt Zimmerman) For simple users like me

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #17
X-Istence * Joined: December 2001 Location: USA Posts: 6,496 Reputation: 2808 Power: 220	Originally Posted by Glaanieboy But why can't I execute gcc and [s\|n]mbd? Because you need to open up their package manager, select what you want, hit install, and let apt-get do it's job. Then you can execute snmbd and nmbd and gcc if you wish. I know it is a pain, but this Linux distro is for the standard user who wnats to surf the web, and check his mail, and edit a few documents. So for us more technical people, it is not a distro of choice. It is a mandrake like system, but stripped down for ease of use even more. Contains just what standard people need, nothing more nothing less. An engineers technical notebook

January 12th, 2005	Top \| #18
Glaanieboy OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: March 2002 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,626 Reputation: 270 Power: 153	Hmm. So basically I would have to create a new user which I would use to login to Linux. The user I created suring install is a Power User of some sort with rights to sudo to root. Am I correct? edit: This was in reply to zeke_mo @the rest: I'll continue to play with it, I am too curious to pull it off again.