[Tails 7.2] Administrator password not valid

Support Tails
1

When setting up a root password in the welcome screen (+) the password is not valid in the console and says always try again. What causes this?

2

Please, why is no one answering?

3

I don’t know, I’ve not encountered this problem before.

The admin password function doesn’t set root password, though. It sets password of the account amnesia and enables sudo for amnesia. Can you try sudo -i in the console after setting the password?

1 Like
4

I tried with sudo -i and it always says try again, because the set password is not accepted.

5

That’s pretty strange. Have you set your keyboard layout on Tails welcome screen? If so, when did you set your admin password? Before or after setting keyboard layout?

6

Yes, and after that the password. I tried different simple ones, like aaaaaaaa and none worked.

7

To make sure I didn’t misunderstood, you mean like this?

  1. After you were presented welcome screen, you set keyboard layout.
  2. Then you set admin password.
  3. Start console, execute sudo -i and enter password, it doesn’t work.

Because I don’t have a non English-US keyboard, I am not sure if I tested it correctly or not, but if I did my test right, after the keyboard layout is set, it is applied immediately and the admin password I then set is entered with the new keyboard layout I set (for example, I set layout to Dvorak, and I enter admin password with US keyboard, if I enter asdf, the admin password would be aoeu), and it just worked as admin password, so the issue you mentioned shouldn’t happen…

Which keyboard layout did you set, by the way?

8

I set German and I think different layouts should accept a string like ‘aaaaaaaa’.

9
  1. Yes, German keyboard and German(QWERTY) keyboard both has a on the 2nd place of the 3rd row on keyboard (next to Caps Lock), the same location as on US keyboard.
  2. But with the former reply, I intend to say, I also tested with other keyboard layout, and I can’t reproduce the problem, if you indeed set the admin password after setting the keyboard layout. To test, I 1) set the keyboard to another keyboard layout, and then 2) entered admin password, and the result is, the admin password I set is entered with the keyboard layout I set, instead of what it would be like using default keyboard layout (US). As a last measure, can you try reinstalling (including re-downloading) Tails on another USB disk, or try with another keyboard, and see what happens?
10

Well, currently I have no second USB drive for another copy of Tails, but thanks for your help, which I appreciate. I may look then later again into this issue, once I have obtained a second USB drive.

1 Like
11

On some old computers numlock makes the keyboard to output nonsense (I have experienced this). Can you please test if thats true with your hardware by using text editor (both numlock on and numlock off)

In linux (and Tails) you can try running command passwd to change a password (not sure how that helps but it is there)

12

Thanks, I will try it out, but think this will not work either, because it is IMHO not the same.

13

Yes, but that usually interferes with keystrokes on the right half of keyboard, not “a”.

Unless you’re changing root password (which will just ask for your new password), you’ll be required to enter your current user password (which is unknown) when trying to use passwd to change your user password, to verify you’re the rightful owner of this account, instead of someone playing with other’s computer.