Lost admin rights

[Yorkie]

I have just set up Ubuntu 9.04.
During the set up it asked for a user name so I decided that "Guest" would be OK.
When I started thinking about regular use I though that I would prefer "Guest" to be the regular user and root would be used for administration rights.

I found that I could not change the "Guest" name only my real name!
So I reduced the rights of the root user so that I could use it as a regular user and use the "Guest" for the administration rights.

The next time I logged on I wanted to share a folder with a "Windows" machine to transfer data but I was not allowed because I could not get the permissions by using "Guest"! Even though I put in the correct password.

The only way I can see of solving the problem is to re-install.

Is there an easier way?

Yorkie

[reed9]

I'm a little confused as to what you actually did.

The root account is disabled in Ubuntu by default. Are you saying you added a user named "root" and tried to give it admin rights?

For ubuntu, anyone who is a member of the admin group, should have full root privileges when using sudo.

You can also setup specific sudo rights in the /etc/sudoers file.

Look at the output of cat /etc/group to see who is a member of which groups.

[Yorkie]

The root was already in the group but it is now grayed out so that I can't access it.
I could access it before and that's when I changed the rights.

How do I get to the command line?
I am using the GUI because I am not familiar enough with command line use.

Yorkie.

[reed9]

How do I get to the command line?
I am using the GUI because I am not familiar enough with command line use.

Applications->Accessories->Terminal

[Yorkie]

Thanks for your help Reed9.

I found the answer using the GUI.
After: System - Admin - Users and Groups, A box appears entitled "Users Settings".

At the bottom of this box is an option to "Unlock".

I clicked on this and supplied the password.

Hey Presto, all the rights were available to change.


Thanks for your attention and help.

Yorkie.