How do you change the root password on Debian?

Question

I want to change the password I assigned to root on my Debian webserver to something longer and more secure.

How do I do that? I haven’t forgotten/lost the current password, I just want to change it.

To find this out for yourself, run `apropos password`: you'll get a list of commands that contain “password” in their short description. You can narrow the search a little with `apropos -s 1 password`: `-s 1` restricts to section 1 of the manual, which contains user commands. — Gilles 'SO- stop being evil', Mar 25 '11 at 19:55

score 82 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

82

Ah, use the passwd program as root:

sudo passwd root

Or, if you’re running as root already (which you shouldn’t be), just:

passwd

The root argument can be omitted, because when you execute passwd it defaults to the current user (which is root, as only root can change the root password).

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

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answered Mar 25 '11 at 14:08

Paul D. Waite

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Obvious in hindsight, really. :) – Shadur Mar 25 '11 at 14:15
@Shadur: *painfully* :) I’d just never done it before, and the Google links I found first were for folks who had forgotten the root password. – Paul D. Waite Mar 25 '11 at 14:18
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Should be `sudo passwd`, or just plain `passwd` if you are running with root privileges. – phunehehe Mar 25 '11 at 14:33
@phunehehe: ah, gotcha. Answer edited; do I need `root` after `sudo passwd` if I’m not running as root? – Paul D. Waite Mar 25 '11 at 15:03
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@Paul I took liberty in editing your answer. There are a few ways to run things as root, and when `passwd` is run as root, it defaults to modify the `root` user. – phunehehe Mar 25 '11 at 16:11
@phunehehe: excellent, much appreciated. – Paul D. Waite Mar 25 '11 at 16:35
Maybe should say su -c 'passwd root' for systems like CentOS, Fedora, RHEL where sudo isn't installed. This would help teach newbies not to run as root by default. – Katerberg Mar 29 '11 at 15:37
Did you ask this to get self-rep... it's on the first page of google results! – jamespo Mar 30 '11 at 10:45
@jamespo: no. When I Googled initially, I only noticed links saying how to reset a lost root password. I do tend to ask on SE sites quite quickly, but only to make the answer easy for me to find in the future. – Paul D. Waite Mar 30 '11 at 10:54
@PaulD.Waite It's worked, but when i'm going to login via Ctrl+Alt+F1 , it's says incorrect login! – Dr.jacky Jun 24 '15 at 06:08
@Mr.Hyde: rough spot. – Paul D. Waite Jun 24 '15 at 09:17
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@Katerberg You can just use su -c "passwd" – 12431234123412341234123 Nov 16 '16 at 15:27

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:30

5

If you're going to be doing a lot of command-line administration, you might find it useful to check out the man pages for usermod(8), chfn(1), chsh(1), passwd(1), crypt(3), gpasswd(8), groupadd(8),

answered Mar 25 '11 at 20:30

Phil Lello

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score -2 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 16 '14 at 05:20

-2

You have to boot in Recovery Mode before using Paul D. Waite's suggestion:

Right after booting your Debian system choose "boot in Recovery Mode"
Right after booting into "Recovery Mode" right at the command prompt simply type:
```
sudo password root
```
then the system will ask for the new Root's password once and twice to verify and you ARE done.

edited Sep 16 '14 at 05:20

Anthon

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answered Sep 16 '14 at 05:12

Juan Blanco

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“You have to boot in Recovery Mode before using Paul D. Waite's suggestion” — Really? I don’t remember doing that. Is this a new thing in a new version of Debian? – Paul D. Waite Sep 17 '14 at 15:56

How do you change the root password on Debian?

3 Answers3