[STICKY] How to get full root privileges through Terminal

Instructions:
You have first to create a "unix" password.

Open terminal and write

Code:

sudo passwd

and click <enter>

You will be asked for your normal user password. You write it and click <enter>
You will then be asked to select a new "unix" password. You think of one, you write it and click <enter>.
You will then be asked to re-write your "unix" password for confirmation purposes. You write it again and click <enter>.
If all has gone well you will get a message saying that the unix password has been updated succesfully.

And that's it.

Next time you want to become "root" in terminal, you open terminal and write:

Code:

su

and click <enter>
You will then be asked for your unix password, you write it and click <enter>

After that, your terminal should look something like:

Code:

root@<username>:

and you will be having full administration rights.

Hi chaps,

an info link to widen the scope so to speak:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

Regards Wolfman

And also, make sure you know the risks of what you're doing. By enabling the root user like this, you're enabling people to log into your machine (e.g. via ssh) as root. Only enable root if you absolutely have to -- there's a reason why linux distros like Zorin ship with root disabled....

Thank you for this. Sometimes you need this root privileges.
I recently downloaded and installed Zorin 6 RC-Lite, it is a beautiful, fast distro !
Regards
Shrinivas from India

Hi Shrinivas from India and welcome to the forum

Regards Wolfman

Hello,
I have used Linux for many years, mostly Red-Hat and Cent-OS, I have used Ubuntu some and am real new to Zorin.
I am trying to unlock the root account, I tried the normal things, but if I do sudo, I get:
sudo: unable to change to sudoers gid: Operation not permitted.
This works in Ubuntu, why does it fail in Zorin?

Thank you

Dr Doug

Another simple way is to do this.

Code:

sudo su

Then you will be prompted or your password, and bam, you will have root access!

Also @IzayoiAki, Zorin9 does not ship with ssh server preinstalled =P

However risk are still present, anytime you make an outbound connection, if there is a security hole the in application you are using then you could be creating a connection some bad guy can see and exploit (in the form of a backdoor) to gain access to your system as root. Or when you run anything as root without knowning the code, it can create a backdoor and connection to something without your knowhow.

I run LAMP for PHP webpage files. To add www and html folders in the /var folder, I have needed root privileges in Ubuntu based Linux for some time now. Is there another way to create those folders? I prefer not to use root if possible.