How can I give admin permissions to my account? [duplicate]

Question

11.10 has allowed me to (stupidly) remove my admin level login leaving me with only my standard log in. I am no longer able to modify any software, update etc.

How can I 'uprate' my user login back up to admin level?

Answer 1

Follow any of the procedures for resetting a forgotten password (or this, this, or this), but do not run:

passwd username

Instead, run:

usermod -a -G sudo username

Of course, username should be replaced with your actual username.

Note: if you are on Ubuntu 11.10 or an older release, the command to run is:

usermod -a -G admin username

Answer 2

On Ubuntu 10.10 admin group was not enough after creating the new user with adduser username. I also had to make the user memeber of the sudo group:

usermod -a -G admin,sudo username