sudo to enable root on Ubuntu 7.10 server

[klf]

Just a short question on basics, but why can I not enable the sudo command after building Ubuntu Server 7.10? The system will not allow me to use sudo to enable root.

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_server_ubuntu7.10

Like your input and interest in building this server, but I may have to use 6.06.1 server edition, as that allows me to work with the sudo command.

[Leszek]

What's in /etc/sudoers file ?

[shadoza]

Hi. I am super new to linux, about two weeks. I am installing 7.10 to try out some layer 7 filtering applications. I had clean installed the server using the whole disk a couple of times due to mistakes made installing the layer 7 packet filtering stuff. After about the third or fourth time reinstalling, I kept getting a no sudoer error like you! It was very frustrating. It resulted in three days of lost work, about 30 fresh installs of the OS trying numberous different things. I read your post yesterday and you talked about the other ubuntu server and after about 3 failed attempts at getting sudoer access I started looking into the other ubuntu server you spoke of. While researching the differences between the two systems I came across this in the release notes Link (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/710):
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If the mail-server task is selected during installation and "No configuration" is selected in response to the question "General type of mail configuration:", then the initial user will be set up without sudo access.
To repair this, boot in recovery mode and run:


addgroup --system admin
adduser USERNAME admin
echo '%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL' >>/etc/sudoers

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My problems sounded a lot like yours, I am doing an install while I am writing this, and I already left the mail options the bad way, so I am going to try and fix it like the instructions above say, if I can't figure it out I will just re-install and let you know the results!

[shadoza]

Good News! It worked for me. If you have the same problem where no matter what you can't get the sudo to work, and the /etc/sudoers is listed but when you try to access it, it says it doesn't exist, then this is the cause and solution.

I don't know if the commands worked for me because how I had this current install configured I made the grub partition too big so I was never able to see the results. I just clean installed.

[klf]

Thank you for your help shadoza. This worked, and thanks for the link to the 7.10 help file. There was nothing in the etc/sudoers file, as I built the mail server with no initial configuration, I could not access the sudoers file.