I enabled the root account by mistake, how do I disable it?

Question

I wanted to change my own password, but instead of using sudo passwd myuser, I used sudo passwd by mistake, and so I set the password for root. Does that mean that my root account is enabled now? I know that it's supposed to be disabled in Ubuntu. What steps should I take to disable it again? It's currently set to the same password as my own user account, and it's kind of redundant, because my user is in the sudoers list anyway.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '12 at 11:27

4

Yes, the root account is now enabled. You can disable it with sudo passwd -dl root. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#Re-disabling_your_root_account

To change your user's password, just run passwd instead of sudo passwd username.

answered Jul 07 '12 at 11:27

geirha

46,101

1

also if you just need to change your password just type passwd – coder Jul 07 '12 at 11:40

I enabled the root account by mistake, how do I disable it?

1 Answers1