Ubuntu - Root Account Expired

[Ocky]

For some stupid reason (curiousity), I opened a root shell in terminal and
then instead of just exiting, typed sudo passwd -l root to disable
root account.
Now in my auth.log I see entries like this :-
CRON[32633]: pam_unix(cron:account): account root has expired
On further investigation I have learnt that the above fateful command
breaks cron jobs and that no new users can be added. Also some install
scripts may not run. Apparently this is a bug in Hardy that has not been
patched as yet. I want to get back to the default root account settings,
i.e. disabled but not expiring.
The workarounds I have come across are:-

sudo usermod -p ! root

and:-

$ sudo vim /etc/shadow

change the line:
root:!:13919:0:99999:7::1:

to
root:!:13919:0:99999:7:::

Question. Do both methods achieve the same result, or do I have to
do both of them ??

Regards.

[Mrkvonic]

Hello,

Rule of thumb: apply changes one at a time.

Try method 1, reboot, see if it helps. If not, try method 2 ... etc. Only after exhausting all singlets try doublets and triplets.

Mrk

[Ocky]

-{ Quote: "Hello,

Rule of thumb: apply changes one at a time.

Try method 1, reboot, see if it helps. If not, try method 2 ... etc. Only after exhausting all singlets try doublets and triplets.

Mrk" }-

Alright, first option no luck, but editing the shadow file has produced the desired
result i.e. root account is disabled....

desktop:~$ sudo getent shadow root|cut -d : -f 2
!
desktop:~$

and no longer expires............

CRON[13210]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
CRON[13210]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root

I trust this is Ubuntu default and of course will not ever again use the 'bad'
command mentioned in my first post. ;D

[MikeFleischmann]

Hello all,

There is a much simpler way to do this. Just use usermod -e 2019-01-01 root. This will correct the problem quickly.

Have a great day!!