"Administrative" password


N

new_user

Guest
When I tap on the pandora icon at the far left of the taskbar on the xfce desktop, and then tap on "Accessories", and then "Root Terminal", I get a dialog asking me to "Enter the administrative password". If I enter my user password I get the message "Incorrect password ... try again".

Is there a special administrative/root password? If so, how is it set?
 
By default, the root password is not set, as pandoras are set up so that you can execute any command with root privileges using "sudo". This includes the command "su", so entering the following in a normal terminal will turn it into a root (administrative) terminal:


sudo su

You will then have to type in your normal password and will get a root command prompt.

Then you can then use the command:


passwd

and can enter a new root password.
 
Thank you.

What you say works in a terminal (i.e. I can now get root's hash prompt after a su with the new root password) but the dialog which I referred in my post will not accept the new root password.
 
Did you run passwd in a root terminal? That is

Code:
sudo su
<enter user password>
passwd
<enter new root password>
exit
 
Yes I did all that - and it works - so I can now get root access from a normal terminal. I am just wondering why the pandora > "Accessories" > "Root Terminal" > "Enter the admnistrative password" box does not accept the new password. At least not for me. Does it accept it in your system?
 
If you try Pandora > "System" > "Usermanager" > "Enter you password to perform administrative tasks", which password works? Your user password or the root password?

I find that the user password works, and the root password does not.

In the "Root Terminal" box however, neither password is accepted.
 
Yes, the usermanager wants your user password, presumably as long as your user is configured in sudoers. But the root terminal app seems to be wired a little differently, and will only accept my root password. Also, it seems that box is a little different - it's heading is 'Enter the administrative password' and it has a 'remember password' area towards the bottom.


The usermanager box looks like the standard gnomish gsudo box to me, and normally in GTK UIs it expects the logged in user to be a sudoer and to put their user password in to achieve adminstrative stuff. I don't know where that frontend to the 'Root Terminal' menu item came from, it doesn't look familiar to me. But putting my root password in there works.


I'd suggest resetting your root password and trying it immediately after, to make sure it's not a caps-lock issue or something.
 
Changed the root password and tried again but still not working. (The box has a helpful "You have capslock on" message so that wasn't the problem).

Thank you for your help anyway. The fundamental problem of getting root access was solved with "sudo su" so this "Root Terminal" box thing is a minor - and apparently not widespread (albeit perplexing, for me) - matter. I'll keep trying things to see if I can come up with some solution.
 
Out of interest, if you just 'su' in a terminal now, it should ask for your root password. Getting a root prompt by sudoing su is a bit of a hack as far as I know, and I was quite surprised it let me do it first time I tried.
 
Now I do just use "su". I only used "sudo su" the first time so that I could set the root password.
 
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