[O/S] Terminal command for root

[thomastt371]

I am attempting to update Debian 12 Bookworm for the first time but every time i run the command sudo apt update im aske for my root password which i enter and im getting Michael@debian Michael is not in the sudoers file and i cant find a simple way to fix this..can someone with more experience than me,get me sorted out thanks for reading this post michael

[Aki]

Hello,

You can use the "su" command; for example, the following command will open a shell for the user root (the root password is required):

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su -l

The shell prompt will change from $ to # (indicating that this is a root shell).

Hope this helps.

[juribel]

Additionally, after having entered the root shell, you can add your user to the sudoers file with

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usermod -aG sudo <your user name>

After this, you can 'sudo' in your normal user shell.

[thomastt371]

thanks will try that regards michael

[None1975]

thanks will try that regards michael

Hello.

Don't do this. Just login as root and add one simple command

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adduser yourusername sudo 

where yourusername is your actual name. In Debian this is preferred method to add your user to sudo group.

P.S.

By the way, your can update your system in root shell with simple command

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su -

[thomastt371]

su -1 comes up as an invalid command? michael

[juribel]

Should not be -1 (minus one) but rather -l (minus small letter L)

[thomastt371]

ok tks juribel will try that michael

[thomastt371]

hi juribel ive tried that command su -l which works so i enter root password ok and get a prompt..so enter usermod -ag sudo and my username but then taken to help screen list of su commands? so i am no futher foward and still cant add michael to sdoers list?

[bbbhltz]

Just doing this should work.

Just login as root and add one simple command

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adduser yourusername sudo 

where yourusername is your actual name. In Debian this is preferred method to add your user to sudo group.

You can see in the official wiki that this is the recommendation.

https://wiki.debian.org/sudo

Add existing user from commandline

To add an existing user with id=foo to group=sudo:

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$ sudo adduser foo sudo

Or course, sudo needs to be installed.

[Aki]

Hello,

su -1 comes up as an invalid command? michael

Yes, because you mistyped "su -1" (minus one) when the command is "su -l" (minus l, l as the first character of the word "login").

[steve_v]

su -1 comes up as an invalid command

enter usermod -ag sudo and my username but then taken to help screen list of su commands

Enter (or copy-paste) CLI commands exactly as posted, including capitalisation.

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usermod -ag

is not the same as

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usermod -aG

If you have command output or errors to report, don't describe them, post the command you used and the response, verbatim, in code tags. "help screen list of su commands" is too vague to comment on.


There are at least 5 different ways to grant a user sudo permissions:
- Editing the /etc/sudoers file (read the comments in said file), either directly or with 'visudo'.
- Editing the /etc/group file to add your username to the 'sudo' group (which is already in /etc/sudoers).
- Using usermod to add your user to the 'sudo' group ('usermod -aG <group> <user>').
- Using adduser to do the same ('adduser <user> <group>').
- Using gpasswd to do the same ('gpasswd -a <user> <group>').

All of the above options have manual pages, e.g. 'man sudoers', 'man group', 'man usermod' etc.

Note any changes to group membership will require a logout/login to take effect.