Ubuntu 20.04.1: No ability to use sudo and su

Asked Feb 28 '21 at 00:00

Active Feb 28 '21 at 07:19

Viewed 38 times

I just installed Ubuntu 20.04.1 and I must have screwed up. I have just one user account and with this account I'm unable to use sudo and su. This obviously prevents me from running apt-get and doing other things. I've seen some posts on this - people being unable to use sudo and a workaround with su, but I can't seem to use either command. Here is what I see after issuing each command and entering the password for skip33

$ sudo -i
skip33 is not in the sudoers group. This incident will be reported
$ su -
su: Authentication failure
$ usermod -aG sudo skip33
usermod: Permission denied.
$ sudo su
skip33 is not in sudoers group.

Ok, is there any way to fix this without reinstalling the OS?

I hope to hear back from you guys. Thanks.

edited Feb 28 '21 at 07:19

ajgringo619

1,172

asked Feb 28 '21 at 00:00

reacher33

2

You will need to boot into a root shell and add your user to the sudo group - see for example How do I add myself back as a sudo user? – steeldriver Feb 28 '21 at 00:09
Thanks I just tried your suggestions in the link you provided but I can't seem to even boot into the GRUB menu. I tried these 5 steps as well https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/07/key-to-show-grub-menu-ubuntu. I am running Ubuntu inside a VM, maybe that's part of the problem. Any other suggestions? – reacher33 Feb 28 '21 at 00:23
It matters if those keypresses are being captured by the VM Guest or not. Ensure the Guest VM is the active window. – user535733 Feb 28 '21 at 01:37
Thanks steeldriver and user535733. You were both right. – reacher33 Feb 28 '21 at 03:58

Ubuntu 20.04.1: No ability to use sudo and su

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