I've been using Linux for a while, but I'm still getting the hang of things. Recently, I started using Debian with KDE, and I'm having trouble with a program that requires root access. I thought I knew the password I set, but every time I try it, I keep getting 'Authentication failure, please try again.' Is there a way for me to check if my root password is correct, or how can I change it if I've forgotten?
3 Answers
Remember, if you're using `sudo`, you typically don’t need the root password at all—just your own user password. It's possible the root account is disabled by default. So try that out first!
You can’t really check your root password, but you can change it! Just use the command `sudo passwd` to reset it.
If you can't use `sudo passwd` and you need to reset it, you might want to boot from a USB stick and change it from there. If your drive isn't encrypted, that should work. Alternatively, you can access a shell directly from boot—just intercept the GRUB boot menu and modify the command line to run bash directly, then edit your password from the `shadow` file.
Yeah, that's a good approach! Just remember to be careful and back up any important data.