Sorry, I have no experience with VPN.Ok guys, I finally had to reinstall Debian bookworm and lost all my passwords. I did get a refund on the VPN but have spent the last three days changing all my passwords to get into the bills and pay them. I went for PIA VPN and followed instructions to get me into the root area.
When I went to the terminal I first followed the directions which stated sudo. I put in my new password and with no way to check it I hit enter. Three times I did this and was very careful to put it in correctly. It would not take it and kept saying not accepted.
I've had that problem once or twice
where a newly created password would not work. I've always
suspected typos or undefined caps-lock state.
Most password entry forms have a small icon to click then you can view the new password you entered. I always check that when installing Debian and anywhere else I need to create a password, just to confirm I didn't inadvertently have caps-lock or number-lock active.
The terminal doesn't have that option, in that case if I want to be doubly sure I'm getting my new password correct, I open a text editor and type my new password then copy-and-paste it into the terminal window. Then when it asks for it the second time to confirm, I type directly into the terminal.
The time I accidentally locked myself
out of sudo, I mounted the locked hdd on another linux pc and
edited the shadow file, copying the hash for sudo with the known
password to the drive with the unknown password. I would not
recommend trying that unless you are confident about editing
operating system configuration files.
So today I tried it again with just su and got the same results.
I am at a complete loss. If I can't get into the sudo file I cannot install anything in root. I really need your knowledge. I always double and sometimes triple check everything I do. Passwords are written down and double checked especially the new ones I made.
Thank you in advance.
Moe
-- Titus Newswanger Curtiss WI