Ubuntu – Password not working for sudo (“Authentication failure”)

authenticationsudo

Before I mention anything further, DO NOT give me a response saying that terminal won't show password input. I'm AWARE of that.

I'm typing my user password in (not a capslock issue), and for some reason it still says 'Authentication Failure'.

Is there some other password (one I'm not aware of) I'm supposed to be using other than my user password? I've had this ubuntu before, on another hard drive and I didn't have this problem. (And it was the same ubuntu, ubuntu 12.04 LTS)

ai@AiNekoYokai:~$ groups
ai adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare
ai@AiNekoYokai:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description:    Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release:    12.04
ai@AiNekoYokai:~$ pkexec cat /etc/sudoers
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
# directly modifying this file.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
Defaults    env_reset
Defaults    secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives:

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

I can log in with my password, but it's not accepted as valid for authentication <– That is pretty much my issue. (Although, I haven't gone into recovery mode.)

I've ran:

ai@AiNekoYokai:~$ ls /etc/sudoers.d
README

And also reinstalled sudo with:

pkexec apt-get update
pkexec apt-get --purge --reinstall install sudo

pkexec usermod -a -G admin $USER <- Says admin does not exist

su $USER <- worked for me, however, my password still does not do much (in sense of not working for other things)

I changed my password with pkexec passwd $USER. I was able to change it no problem.

gksudo xclock was something I was able to get into, no problem. (Clock showed)

ai@AiNekoYokai:~$ gksudo xclock

Best Answer

I had this problem when I was using a special keyboard layout (Bépo). The terminal was not recognizing the special characters. Maybe this is your problem too ?

How to change the keyboard-layout in the console, with special characters?

Related Question