Today I got stuck on what could be a simple problem to long time Ubuntu users - making changes that require *root *access.
I never faced this problem until today because my Ubuntu user account/password was enough to make system level changes as it was treated like admin user by Ubuntu.
Today I tried to modify the directory */var/www *which is owned by the root. Since the folder is not owned by me, Ubuntu asked me to enter the root password and I typed my Ubuntu user password. It didn't work, obviously.
Then I tried to escalate the permission level to *root, *so I tried the command: *su root *and gave my Ubuntu user password. This also failed.
After googling sometime, I found out that,
- Ubuntu does not allow you to directly login as root.
- The first Ubuntu account you create is treated like admin account.
So, in order to escalate yourself as a *root *user in Ubuntu terminal, I had to give the command: '***sudo su -' **(without quotes) *and then enter my current Ubuntu user password. After that, I was escalated to *root _user and then able to modify the _/var/www *folder as I wanted. Piece of cake!!