Terminal becomes unresponsive when a “sudo” password prompt is displayed

sudoterminal

When asked to type my password to run a sudo command, the USB keyboard goes unresponsive and I cannot type in the password or anything else.

I can hit return three times to bounce out on three failed password attempts however so it gets the return key input but no other keys until I bounce out then all works again.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

The terminal doesn't show the characters being entered when typing in a password field such as a sudo password field. The characters are still being entered—just type your password as normal and press Enter to continue.

$ sudo echo hi
Password: type here, then enter
hi

You can show asterisks when entering your password for sudo by editing the sudoers file.

  1. Open /etc/sudoers with visudo:

    EDITOR=nano sudo visudo

    I've used nano here, but feel free to use your preferred editor.
    visudo will check your file for errors before saving, otherwise you may not be able to sudo.
    You can backup the file with cp /etc/sudoers ~/Desktop.

  2. Add "pwfeedback" to the Defaults, replacing the first line with the second:

    Defaults env_reset

    Defaults env_reset,pwfeedback

$ sudo echo hi
Password: ************
hi
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