root password

[Bruce Bales]

On Monday 30 June 2008 15:02:24 John DeCarlo wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Martin Laberge <mlsoft at videotron.ca> wrote:
> > But when the system cant boot and stop in admin mode, it asks for the
> > ROOT passwd.
> > I believe it is the kernel or the init task who ask for the ROOT passwd
> > at this moment.
> > As follows:
> >
> > Root filesystem mounted read only.
> > Please enter the root password to enter admin mode or press Ctrl-D to
> > continue :
> >
> > This happened to me once, and I install a password for root from this
> > time on.
>
> I have played around with Ubuntu/Kubuntu for some time.  If the system
> can't boot - like the boot drive has disappeared (yes, I have messed up
> Grub that way), it drops you into single user mode.  No root password is
> asked for, because there is none.
>
> So Kubuntu has thought of this already - no issue.

I'm a couple of weeks late on this thread, but I don't see where anyone 
addressed this situation -- trying to look at the result of a mysqlhotcopy.   
The user is mysql and you, as an ordinary user, are denied access.  Using 
sudo, the machine cannot find the cd command.   That is where you really need 
to be root.

bruce at blacky:~/docs$ cd /tmp/class
bash: cd: /tmp/class: Permission denied
bruce at blacky:~/docs$ sudo cd /tmp/class
sudo: cd: command not found
bruce at blacky:~/docs$ su
Password:
root at blacky:/home/bruce/docs# cd /tmp/class
root at blacky:/tmp/class# ls -l
total 304
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql  8876 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.frm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql 43856 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.MYD
-rwxr-xr-x 1 mysql mysql  1024 2008-03-18 14:58 1950all.MYI

sudo -i does work in this situation.
bruce