Red Hat Linux 7.3: The Official Red Hat Linux Getting Started Guide | ||
---|---|---|
Prev | Chapter 14. Frequently Asked Questions | Next |
Help! I forgot my root password. How do I log in now?
You can log in using single-user linux mode and create a new root password.
To enter Linux single-user mode, reboot your computer. If you use the default bootloader, GRUB, you can enter single user mode by performing the following:
At the bootloader menu, type
You will be presented with a boot entry listing. Look for the line that looks similar to the following:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-0.4 ro root=/dev/hda2 |
Press the arrow key until this line is highlighted and press
You can now add single to the end of the
text to tell GRUB to boot into single-user Linux mode. Press
You will be brought back to the edit mode screen. From here,
press
sh-2.05# |
You can now change the root password by typing
bash# passwd root |
You will be asked to re-type the password for verification. Once you are finished, the password will be changed and you can reboot by typing reboot at the prompt; then you can log in to root as you normally would.