ubuntu server how to boot to “recovery mode”

Question

I accidentally removed my user from the sudo group.

A friend of mine told me to go into recovery mode and edit the visudo file.

The problem is, I don't know how to get into recovery mode. Can anyone please tell me how to do this? I am on ubuntu server 10.04 64bit.

Thanks

Answer 1

I think you need to hold down the SHIFT key during boot and this should present you with the option to boot to recovery mode.

EDIT: (Assuming it is a single and not a dual boot system)

Answer 2

Once you're in, you don't edit the visudo file; you can either

• use visudo (assuming you know how to use vi, or do EDITOR=nano visudo (or whatever editor)), which safely edits /etc/sudoers and does sanity checking before saving
• addgroup <username> admin, since the admin group is in the sudoers file

Of course, you shouldn't add yourself to the admin group if you weren't in it to start with... which won't be a problem if it's your server...