Enable or Disable Ubuntu’s Root Account in Minutes

Ubuntu disables the root account by default for security. This guide shows how to enable and later disable the root user.

Sudo Permissions and Adding Users to the sudo Group

To grant sudo rights, add the user to the sudo group: sudo usermod -aG sudo username After this, prepend sudo to commands to run them with elevated privileges.

Configuring Password‑less sudo

Edit the sudoers file with visudo and add NOPASSWD: to the desired rule, e.g.: %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL This allows members of the sudo group to execute commands without entering a password.

Enabling the Root Account

Set a password for the root user (requires sudo rights): sudo passwd root Enter and confirm the new password. Afterwards you can switch to the root shell with su - and the password you set.

Disabling the Root Account

To lock the root account, expire its password: sudo passwd -l root After expiring the password, attempts to log in as root using su will fail with an authentication error.

Security Reminder

When setting passwords, use a strong, unique password of at least 16 characters, containing uppercase, lowercase, digits, and special symbols.