Ubuntu 26.04 Ends 46 Years of Silent sudo Passwords

Recorded: March 21, 2026, 10 p.m.

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March 21, 2026

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Ubuntu 26.04 Breaks 46 Years of sudo Tradition

Linux Observer
Thursday, March 19, 2026 · Open Source & Systems

Ubuntu & Open Source
Ubuntu 26.04 Ends 46 Years of Silent sudo Passwords

Starting with the upcoming LTS release, every keystroke at a sudo password prompt
will echo an asterisk — a small UX fix that has ignited one of Linux’s fiercest debates in years.

Linux Observer Staff
Published March 19, 2026 · 6 min read

Ubuntu 26.04
sudo-rs
Rust

For more than four decades, typing a password after a sudo prompt
in a Linux terminal produced nothing visible on screen — no asterisks, no dots, no moving cursor.
The blank void was intentional: a guard against “shoulder surfing,” the practice of counting
keystrokes to guess a password’s length. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, codenamed Resolute Raccoon
and due on April 23, 2026, changes that.

“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.”
— sudo-rs upstream commit message, enabling pwfeedback by default

user@ubuntu — bash

# Ubuntu ≤ 25.04 — old behaviour (no feedback)
beforeuser@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user: █ ← cursor blinks; nothing shown

# Ubuntu 26.04 — new behaviour (asterisks per character)
afteruser@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for user: ******** ← one ✱ per keystroke

A History Written in Silence

The original sudo utility
was created in 1980 by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Its silent password prompt was a deliberate security decision from an era when terminals were shared,
physical screens were wide-open, and the threat model squarely included people standing behind you counting keystrokes.
That behaviour survived — untouched — through nearly half a century of Linux distributions.

The tradition began to crack when Linux Mint enabled visual password feedback by default for its own
sudo configuration, quietly demonstrating that the sky would not fall. Still, mainstream distributions,
Ubuntu among them, maintained the classic silent prompt.

Enter sudo-rs: Rust Rewrites the Rules

The catalyst for Ubuntu’s change is sudo-rs, a ground-up rewrite of the classic C
implementation in the Rust programming language. Canonical shipped sudo-rs as the default
sudo implementation beginning
with Ubuntu 25.10 — a transition that most users never noticed because the command
name and behaviour were otherwise identical.

Then, roughly two weeks before the Ubuntu 26.04 beta window, the upstream sudo-rs project
merged a patch to enable the pwfeedback
option by default. Canonical cherry-picked that patch into Ubuntu 26.04 development builds.
The legacy sudo
package (sometimes labelled sudo-ws) is unaffected; only the sudo-rs path shows asterisks.

1980
Original sudo created at SUNY Buffalo. Silent password input is the default from day one.

Ubuntu 25.10 — October 2025
Canonical replaces the classic C-based sudo with sudo-rs (Rust). Behaviour remains visually unchanged for users.

October 2025
A bug report filed against sudo-rs requests that pwfeedback be enabled by default to “make sane modern UX decisions.”

February 2026
Upstream sudo-rs merges the pwfeedback patch. Canonical cherry-picks it into Ubuntu 26.04 daily builds. Community debate erupts.

April 23, 2026
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” ships to the public. Password asterisks become the default for millions of users.

The Security Argument — Both Sides

Critics of the change point to a bug report whose title captures the sentiment perfectly:
“sudo-rs echos * for every character typed breaking historical security measures older than I am.”
Ubuntu acknowledged the report and marked it Won’t Fix. The upstream sudo-rs
developers similarly declined to back down.

The developers’ counter-argument rests on two pillars. First, the security benefit of hiding
password length is negligible in practice — anyone close enough to count asterisks on a screen
is close enough to hear or watch your keystrokes directly. Second, and more pointedly, most users’
sudo password
is the same as their login password — one that already appears as visible placeholder dots on the
graphical login screen. Hiding asterisks in the terminal while showing them at login is, in the
developers’ estimation, security theatre.

Aspect
Classic sudo (silent)
sudo-rs with pwfeedback

Visual feedback
None
One asterisk per character

Password length exposed
No
Yes (to shoulder snoopers)

New-user experience
Confusing — appears frozen
Confirms input is registering

SSH session behaviour
Silent
Asterisks shown in SSH sessions too

Revertible?
—
Yes — one sudoers line

How to Restore the Classic Behaviour

Users and system administrators who prefer the traditional silent prompt can restore it with a
single configuration change. The setting is toggled via the
sudoers
file, which should always be edited through the safe
visudo command to prevent
syntax errors from locking you out.

🔧 Restore Silent Password Input
sudo visudo
Then add the following line to the sudoers file:
Defaults !pwfeedback
Save and close. The change takes effect immediately in new terminal sessions. No reboot required.

The Broader Picture

The asterisk change is part of a wider modernisation underway in Ubuntu 26.04. The release
will ship with GNOME 50 running exclusively on Wayland, Linux kernel 7.0, and further adoption of
Rust-based core utilities — including
uutils/coreutils,
a Rust reimplementation of the standard Unix command-line tools.
The switch to sudo-rs is thus one piece of a broader effort to bring memory safety and, apparently,
modern UX sensibilities to Ubuntu’s fundamental plumbing.

Whether you consider the asterisk change an overdue quality-of-life improvement or a dangerous
departure from Unix philosophy, one thing is clear: the option to revert remains firmly in your
hands. The developers have simply decided that the default should favour the many newcomers
baffled by a blank prompt over the few veterans who cherished it.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Resolute Raccoon is scheduled for final release on April 23, 2026.

Sources: Phoronix (February 26, 2026), OMG! Ubuntu, XDA Developers, OSTechNix,
LinuxConfig, sudo-rs upstream commit history.
Note: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is in active development at time of publication.
Feature details reflect the latest available pre-release builds and may be subject to minor changes
before final release. Legacy sudo-ws
is unaffected by the pwfeedback change.

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Ubuntu 26.04 Ends 46 Years of Silent sudo Passwords

The Linux Observer, a technology news outlet, reported on March 19, 2026, that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, codenamed “Resolute Raccoon,” is introducing a significant user experience change regarding the sudo command. For over 46 years, typing a password after a sudo prompt in the terminal produced no visible output – a feature designed to prevent shoulder surfing, where someone could observe keystrokes to guess a password. Starting with this new release, every keystroke at a sudo password prompt will now echo an asterisk, providing immediate feedback to the user. This change was primarily driven by the sudo-rs project, a ground-up rewrite of the classic C implementation of sudo in the Rust programming language.

The origins of the silent prompt date back to 1980, when Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer at the State University of New York at Buffalo created sudo. This initial design emphasized security, reflecting a time when shared terminals and open screens presented a greater risk of password observation. The tradition of a silent prompt endured through almost half a century of Linux distributions, maintained by distributions like Linux Mint. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, introduced sudo-rs as the default sudo implementation beginning with Ubuntu 25.10, a transition largely unnoticed by users because the command’s behavior remained identical. A bug report highlighting the need for default pwfeedback enabled by sudo-rs spurred the upstream project to merge a patch, which Canonical then incorporated into the Ubuntu 26.04 development builds.

The change has sparked debate within the Linux community, with critics arguing that the silent prompt offers a negligible security benefit – anyone close enough to observe asterisks would also be able to see keystrokes directly. However, Ubuntu developers countered that the visual feedback is redundant, given that most users’ sudo passwords are the same as their login passwords, which are already visible as placeholders on the graphical login screen. The developers marked the “Won’t Fix” on the bug report and, as a result, the default behavior for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will feature asterisks displayed for each keystroke entered at a sudo prompt.

Users who prefer the traditional silent prompt can easily revert to it by adding the line “Defaults !pwfeedback” to the sudoers file, edited through the safe visudo command. This adjustment takes effect immediately in new terminal sessions without requiring a reboot. The release represents a broader modernization effort for Ubuntu 26.04, utilizing GNOME 50 on Wayland, the Linux kernel 7.0, and further adoption of Rust-based core utilities, including uutils/coreutils. This update is part of the ongoing effort to improve memory safety and UX sensibilities within the Ubuntu operating system. The sources cited for this reporting include Phoronix, OMG! Ubuntu, XDA Developers, OSTechNix, LinuxConfig, and the sudo-rs upstream commit history.