Help! I’m on my Chromebook in developer mode and I can’t sudo in the shell!

So you have a Chromebook. You booted into developer mode. You alt+ctrl+t for the terminal. You entered shell. But now when you want to try crouton or something as sudo, it prompts you for a password you don’t know!

Solution:

  1. Go into VT2 using ctrl+alt+F2.
  2. When prompted for a login, use root.
    • If you enabled Debugging Features and you set a root password, enter that password.
    • If you enabled Debugging Features and you DID NOT set a root password, enter test0000.
    • If you DID NOT enable Debugging Features, …? (contributions welcomed)
  4. Enter chromeos-setdevpasswd and follow the prompt.
  5. Once complete, you have just set the sudo password! Use it on the shell (a.k.a ctrl+alt+t and shell).
  6. Done!

Enormous thanks to Github user lan-gate.