In the Linux system, the root user, also known as the superuser or administrator, is a unique user account. The root account is available in all Unix or Linux systems, which helps you access every command and resource of the machine without much effort. But since you are switching to Ubuntu from another computer, you might wonder what the ubuntu default root password is or how to change the default ubuntu password. Knowing this is important since a root account lets you access most system features easily. In Ubuntu systems, the root account is disabled by default, so you need to change its password at the earliest to access its main features. You can try several methods to change the default ubuntu root password, and in this post, we will share those methods with you.
How to Temporarily Switch to Root?
You will need sudo privileges to perform system administrative tasks on your Ubuntu system. With Sudo, authorized users can run programs as regular users or root users. When you install the Ubuntu system, there will be an initial user installed by Ubuntu that will be a member of the sudo community. And if you have not created another user yet, then the chances are that member is the user you are currently logged in on your system. And the user already had the administrative privileges of your Ubuntu system. To use the root user privileges temporarily, run the following command:
sudo command-name
The first time you use the command, your system may want you to enter the user password. You can temporarily switch to the root account during the current login session by using sudo su or sudo -i followed by the user password:
sudo su –
You can run the whoami command that will verify if the user is changed: whoami and the output will show root.
This step will allow you to disable the root account on your Ubuntu system, but since you want to change the root password, too, you need to follow the next section of this post.
How to Change the Default ubuntu Root Password?
The previous section has helped to switch to the root account and disable it temporarily. But the root user account is still there, and it hasn’t been removed yet. You cannot log in as root because there is no password set for the root account, or you don’t know a password that will help you access the root account. Also, if you need to enable the root account, you can just set up a password for that account using the passwd command in the Ubuntu system. Run the command with Sudo privilege on your Ubuntu system if you want to change the password of your root user account:
sudo passwd root
You will be prompted to enter a new password and confirm the same. But when you are entering a password, make sure that the password is unique and powerful because, without a strong password, your system will be vulnerable. A powerful password should have at least 16 characters that are alphanumeric, which means uppercase and lowercase characters, a special character, a number, etc. But when you type the password, it won’t show on the screen; instead, it will look like this:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
This is the whole procedure of changing the password for the root users, and that will help you log in to your account in the future. To log in as a root user, open the terminal and enter the following command:
$ sudo bash, or you can enter $ sudo -s, and when you provide your password, it will let you access your user account.
Conclusion
So, there is no ubuntu default password because the account is locked by default. And since there is no ubuntu default root password, you will have to create one by yourself with the help of the steps we have mentioned above. Not only does this apply to Ubuntu but many other Linux systems. Linux permits a regular user account to log in as a user with root privileges; that is what we call sudo. This is done because it increases the security of the Linux system.
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