Set password for root on virtualbox ubuntu

Question

I tried another way to do this, but it ended up crashing my server by using up all the memory.

My server admins came up with a second approach:

RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4-$5 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3-$4 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2-$3 [E=underscores:Yes]
RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_(.*)$ $1-$2 [E=underscores:Yes]    
RewriteCond %{ENV:underscores} ^Yes$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mydomain.tld/$1 [R=301,L] 

This approach seems more stable and doesn't use up memory.

The only problem is that this approach affects all files on the server, not just files that start with the word "article", such as http://www.mydomain.tld/article...

That doesn't work because this is a WordPress installation, and it tries to change all WordPress theme files that use underscores, rendering significant parts of the website unusable.

Can anyone suggest a way to modify this code to make it only apply when the word "article" is involved file name part of the URL?

Solution

Ubuntu uses sudo by default. If you preface your command with "sudo" it prompts for your user password and then runs it as root. To get a root session use:

sudo -i

To enable the root account, open a terminal and run the following to set a root password:

sudo passwd root

For more information see:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

Comments

[Admin]

Off-topic, but try sudo su.

[Panama Jack]

You keep asking the same question and they are answered. I don't believe the rewrites are causing the memory issue. There is something else going on in connection with your wordpress site. There are plenty of servers that use such a rewrite and don't have that problem. The earlier answer was also fine. All your sys admin did was give you another code to try from here askapache.com/htaccess/rewrite-underscores-hyphens-seo-url.h‌​tml. You need to have them find the real reason. There are at least 3 other SO questions with similar rewrites and no memory issues.

[Asher Bitton]

Just to extend slightly (and summarise the link above), by default you cannot log in as root in Ubuntu, but it is possible to set a root password but is not recommended (or actively discouraged)

[Wesley Rice]

'rescue mode' is for disaster recovery, not adding users to the admin group. A 'visudo' command or 'sudo vi /etc/sudoers' should be sufficient.

[dsas]

The problem is that the OP doesn't have sudo access, he cannot fix that by running visudo or sudo vi /etc/sudoers as they both require that he has sudo access.

[Wesley Rice]

No, the problem is that OP doesn't know the root password- "it asks for root password and I don't know it!", to quote. Booting into rescue mode won't get him anywhere.

[dsas]

There generally isn't a root password on Ubuntu. The OP has clarified that the user accounts he does have access to don't have sudo access. Booting in rescue mode as far as I remember gives the option to start a shell as root where he can reset the root password or give sudo access to one of the other user accounts.

[Wesley Rice]

Oh, in that case you're talking about single-user mode, which isn't the same as 'rescue mode', where you typically perform rescue operations.

[dsas]

Yes, which is accessed by selecting "recovery" mode in grub.

[Panama Jack]

He's probably still going to have issues with OOMing because the answer he asked before worked just fine as well. I suspect other problems.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

(1) sudo asks for the user's password. What is "osboxes.org"? (2) The user doesn't have sudo access, so this will just result in an error message.

[Syaiful Nizam Yahya]

@Scott lmgtfy.com/?q=osboxes.org

[Syaiful Nizam Yahya]

For some weird reason, the only way to become root in osboxes.org is the way that I mentioned. If its wrong, prove it.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

OK, so they provide pre-made VMs for people who don't want to go through the hassle of installing them properly.  This information, if correct, may be valuable.  But somebody else agrees with me that it's not an answer to this question.  I suggest that you ask a new question about OSBoxes and post your answer there.  I'm not going to download software from a site of unknown trustworthiness, but I expect that dsas's answer regarding "rescue mode" / "single-user mode" will work on an OSBoxes VM.

[Čamo]

sudo is fine, but if I want to run some cron jobs which cant require password I need to run it as root. So I dont understand this Ubuntu policy about root.

[dsas]

You should add a separate question for that really, but that can be achieved by editing roots crontab using sudo crontab -e