Can't change root password, passwd doesn't do anything

Question

I just got a dedicated server with ubuntu 14.04 on it. I haven't received root details in my server info email, but instead for a different user. So I wanted root access and tried to change the password.

I tried:

sudo -i
passwd

and

sudo passwd root

And I entered my new root password, but when I try to login as root I still get denied access.

If anybody can help me it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

By default in Ubuntu the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file of the openssh-server has the following line:

PermitRootLogin without-password

this prevents to login into the ssh-server as root using password which is for security reasons, you can use key based authentication (and any other not using password) mechanism to login as root directly.

So you have two options:

• First the bad option, avoid this one. Make the line of /etc/ssh/sshd_config as:

    PermitRootLogin password
  

• The good option is to login as another user who has access to the server, then switch to the root account by:

    su - root  ## Will need root's password.
  

or

    sudo su -  ## Will need calling user's password. The calling user needs to be able to use sudo.

Answer 2

You have to swicth to root user by sudo su - and to change pass for username sudo passwd username