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I have a problem. When I enter a Ubuntu machine, I see this messages: 

Could not chdir to home directory /home/root: No such file or directory /usr/bin/xauth: error in locking authority file /home/root/.Xauthority

When I make whoami, I receive the answer: root

but no directory /home/root exist.

When I am trying to create a new user: adduser blabla, I receive this error: 

adduser: Only root may add a user or group to the system.

When I am trying to create it in a different way: useradd -m blabla, I receive: 

useradd: Permission denied. useradd: cannot lock /etc/passwd; try again later.

someone can explain me what went wrong?

Thanks in Advance

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    Are you connecting to a remote machine via ssh? Or is this a local machine? ... There typically is no /home/root directory. The root home is typically located at /root From the error messages, it would appear that you are not the root user for the system. Did you create a user named root? Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 16:01
  • I did log in to a machine. It may be indeed a root user created, but not by me - I am checking it now Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 16:07
  • Can I remove it safely using "sudo userdel root"? Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 16:17
  • "Can I remove it safely using "sudo userdel root"?" No it hurts..., if you dont need root just block root user with the command passwd -l root (l = lowercase L) .... and if you have ssh, change PermitRootLogin to no for guarantee... If the actual root user is not working properly edit /etc/passwd and change UID and GID to 0 ... Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 16:40
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    What is the output of cat /etc/passwd | grep root ... it should look almost identical to this: root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 17:11

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Try to figure out what is your current id (by issuing id command in shell), user root should have uid=0. If your uid is different from 0, you is not under privileged account. Also, what`s happening if you issue command sudo -i ?

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