Re: [gNewSense-users] I did something stupid - root password locked :-(

[andrei raevsky]

solved!

I just booted the computer with a gNewSense live-CD, mounted the root partition on the hard drive and then did:

sudo chroot /media/hda2 passwd

which allowed me to change the root password on the hard drive (rather then on the live-CD)

and then I rebooted it all and that was it.

thanks for all your advice and help!  

Besides learning my lesson about what not to do with the root account on gNewSense, I also learned plenty about gNewSense.

Kind regards,

Andrei

On 2/23/07, Karl Goetz <address@hidden> wrote:

andrei raevsky wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> Dennis and Karl:
>
> Nope, I did not do that as I was not aware of this option.  I never
> used Ubuntu in the past, I only used Debian and then added gNewSense
> to (most) of my computers.  Thanks a lot for the tip.  Since my friend
> is a total newbie to GNU/Linux, instead of giving him back root access
> I was thinking of just doing 'passwd' in the root shell and create a
> password for myself on his machine.  From the Ubuntu doc Michael
> pointed out to me I get that while this might not be the most
> convenient thing for him right now (as soon as he is more comfortable
> I will give him the admin rights back) it is easier for me to keep an
> eye on what he will be doing.  That would not be a problem, right?
>

If you want to keep an account, don't unlock root, add yourself an account.

in rescue mode (or a shell if you have the system running again)
adduser yourlogin
gpasswd -a yourlogin admin
passwd -l root

These commands to the following:
add a user
put the user in the admin group (ie sudoer)
lock the root password again
kk

--
Karl Goetz
User of gNewSense: Free as in Freedom - http://www.gnewsense.org
Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam
User of Debian, The Universal Operating System - http://www.debian.org


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