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Defaults rootpwpasswd -dl rootis the right command actually. In fact, the man page specifically states that will not disable root: "Note that this does not disable the account. The user may still be able to login using another authentication token (e.g. an SSH key). To disable the account, administrators should use usermod --expiredate 1 (this set the account's expire date to Jan 2, 1970)sudo visudoto make any changes to that file. This answer should be what you need, but you might want to drop by our /dev/chat to make sure you don't break anything :)rootis actually completely disabled by default on Ubuntu (and I suppose Mint follows), just password-locked. Making the account expired also might affect stuff likecron(it does for regular users, but I didn't test for root)rootaccount and since the manual specifically states it isn't the right way to disable, I figure we may as well do what it suggests. Then again, disabling root completely might not be the best approach come to think of it. There must be someone with UID=1 after all.