root password

Question

_{Saturday, July 28, 2012 6:56 AM | 1 vote}

When I create Suse VM's I'm never asked for a root password, it does ask me for a user to add and a password for that user, I can login to the VM with ssh fine under that account, but cant for the life of me figure out what the root password is.  Is there a default password?

Drewski of MS

All replies (8)

_{Saturday, July 28, 2012 8:49 PM ✅Answered | 9 votes}

The root password remains private. 
First login with the user account you created. 
When you need to "become root" this is the command you use. 

Sudo -s 
it will ask you to type in your own password again (not the root password, just your own).

After that you will be logged in as root. 
Works in all flavors. 

_{Sunday, September 23, 2012 7:22 PM}

Frank, it's sudo and not Sudo

Also, this is not working for me on three different Linux distros that I've setup a VM on.

Is anyone else getting this error?  Please help...

administrator is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

visit us at www.ryantechinc.com

_{Monday, October 8, 2012 12:58 PM | 1 vote}

Hi,

Well, yes. I have this strange behavior too, while installing the graphical desktop on an Ubuntu machine. My account has been removed from the sudoers file. Then it's difficult to administer anything.

It looks like when the machine is in this state, you are trapped. Maybe you can try to delete the VM, and then recreate it using the same image, but use root as the user name (don't know if Azure allows you to do so). Once you get logged in with root, you get full access. Try that.

To prevent from getting stucked by been removed from the sudoers file, I activate the root account. On the first login to the VM, just after its creation, just type in :

sudo passwd root

and give a string password when been prompted.

Normally, you are still in the sudoers file at the first logon and you are able to sudo commands. Once root is activated, you can ssh with root on the machine and put you back on the sudoers file.

Hope that helps.

Stephan.

_{Thursday, January 24, 2013 6:49 PM}

But when in the GUI, what do I do when installing software and I'm asked for the root password?

_{Tuesday, April 23, 2013 2:10 PM}

Log on as yourself, then sudo to get root permissions, then 'passwd root' to reset the root user password.

_{Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:33 PM}

Frankly speaking, this solution is a lie. On any Linux flavour it is impossible to access the root folder. Am struggling for over 45 days and still no solution.

Sai Krishna

_{Monday, October 13, 2014 2:44 PM}

I just had similar issues until I read this post and the proposed answer does work (with a lower case spelling for sudo of course)

sudo -s

When prompted for a password enter the password of the user you are CURRENTLY logged in as

From this point you can enter

passwd root

You can now set the root password.  I've just tested this on the Suse Distro from the Azure templates

Sean

Windows PowerShell MVP

Powershell. It's so Easy and it's FREE! Dive in and use it now, It'll take no time. :) http://www.powershell.ca http://ye110wbeard.wordpress.com Twitter: @energizedtech

_{Friday, September 13, 2019 2:53 PM}

yes, Thanks that worked for me!!