Ubuntu 26.04 Ends 46 Years of Silent Sudo Passwords – UBOS News

What the Ubuntu 26.04 update changes

Starting with the “Resolute Raccoon” release on 23 April 2026, every sudo password entry in the terminal echoes an asterisk (*) for each keystroke. The shift ends a half‑century of “silent sudo” that showed nothing on the screen, a design choice originally meant to thwart shoulder‑surfing. The new behavior is powered by the Rust‑based sudo‑rs rewrite and is enabled by default across desktop, server, and cloud installations.

46 years of silent sudo: a brief history

The classic sudo utility was authored in 1980 by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer at SUNY Buffalo. At a time when terminals were shared and screens were often visible to anyone in the room, the developers deliberately suppressed any visual cue when a password was typed. This “silent” mode prevented an onlooker from counting characters and estimating password length.

For decades, the silent prompt survived unchanged in virtually every Linux distribution, including Ubuntu. It became a cultural touchstone for seasoned sysadmins, who recognized the blinking cursor as the only sign that input was being accepted.

Only in recent years did a few distros, such as Linux Mint, experiment with visual feedback, arguing that modern workstations rarely face the same physical threats. Ubuntu, however, kept the tradition alive—until the arrival of UBOS platform overview and the broader Rust migration wave.

How sudo‑rs rewrites the password prompt

The transition from the legacy C implementation to OpenAI ChatGPT integration began with Ubuntu 25.10, when Canonical shipped sudo‑rs as the default sudo binary. Functionally, the command behaved identically, but the codebase was now written in Rust, offering memory‑safety guarantees and easier future extensions.

In February 2026, the upstream sudo‑rs project merged a patch that enables the pwfeedback option by default. This option tells the program to echo a single asterisk for each character entered. Canonical cherry‑picked the change into the Ubuntu 26.04 development branch, resulting in the following observable difference:

# Ubuntu ≤ 25.04 (silent)
$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user: █   ← cursor blinks, nothing shown

# Ubuntu 26.04 (asterisks)
$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user: ********   ← one asterisk per keystroke

The modification affects both local terminals and remote SSH sessions, ensuring a consistent experience regardless of how you access the machine.

Community response and the security debate

The change sparked a lively discussion on the Ubuntu forums, Reddit’s r/linux, and the About UBOS community blog. Opinions fell into two camps:

• Pro‑UX advocates argue that the silent prompt confuses newcomers, who often think the terminal has frozen. Visible asterisks reassure users that their keystrokes are being registered.
• Security purists contend that exposing password length re‑introduces a minor information leak, especially in shared‑screen environments. They cite the original rationale for silent sudo as still relevant for high‑security contexts.

Canonical’s response, quoted in the commit message, was pragmatic: “Security is theoretically worse since password lengths are exposed to people watching your screen, but this is an infinitesimal benefit far outweighed by the UX issue.” The developers also pointed out that most users already expose their password length on graphical login screens, making the terminal’s silence appear inconsistent.

For those who remain uneasy, the good news is that the new behavior is fully reversible with a single sudoers directive.

How to revert to the classic silent sudo prompt

If you prefer the historic silent mode—perhaps for compliance reasons or personal habit—follow these steps. The process uses visudo, the safest way to edit the sudoers file because it validates syntax before saving.

1. Open a terminal with administrative privileges.
2. Run sudo visudo. This launches the default editor (usually nano or vim).
3. Locate the Defaults line or add a new one at the end of the file:

Defaults !pwfeedback

4. Save and exit the editor (Ctrl+X then Y for nano, or :wq for vim).
5. Open a new terminal session and test the change:

$ sudo ls /root
[sudo] password for user: 

The prompt should now be silent again.

No reboot is required; the new setting takes effect immediately for any new shell.

What this means for Ubuntu users and future releases

The asterisk rollout is part of a broader modernization effort in Ubuntu 26.04, which also includes:

• GNOME 50 running exclusively on Wayland.
• Linux kernel 7.0 with improved hardware support.
• Widespread adoption of Rust‑based core utilities (Workflow automation studio, Web app editor on UBOS).

For enterprises, the change signals Canonical’s willingness to prioritize usability without sacrificing the security posture that long‑time admins expect. The ability to toggle the behavior via sudoers preserves flexibility for regulated environments.

Looking ahead, we can anticipate more Rust migrations—potentially affecting tools like apt, systemd, and networking stacks—each bringing memory safety and easier extensibility.

Conclusion

Ubuntu 26.04’s decision to display asterisks for sudo passwords ends a 46‑year tradition, balancing modern user experience with a negligible security trade‑off. The change is reversible, ensuring that power users retain control over their environment.

Stay informed about Ubuntu’s evolving ecosystem and explore how AI‑driven automation can streamline your workflows. Check out the AI marketing agents for smarter campaign management, or browse the UBOS templates for quick start to accelerate your next project.

Have you already experienced the new asterisk prompt? Share your thoughts in the comments, or reach out to the UBOS partner program for collaborative opportunities.