Submitted by ggarron on Mon, 01/29/2007 - 22:33
How to recover / change the root password on RedHat Linux based systems
When you lost your root password in a RedHat Linux Based systems you should first have access to the console, (the machine itself).
Power on, or reboot as needed.
and as soon as you get this screen (or similar depending your system and configurations)
Now you should press 'e' and you will get this screen.
Select the image you would like to boot, and press 'e' again, and as soon as you get the nex screen
Insert an space and the number one '1' as shown in the image.
After that press ENTER and 'b' and ENTER again.
Your will now have your System booted as a single user and you will have no need to enter a password.
Now you can change the password like this
#passwd
#reboot
And you will have againg your system working.
Here you can see the las two images, showing this.
Thanks! Worked a charm on CentOS 5.
YOU REALLY SAVED MY LIFE!
Thank you!!!
yeah it works fine thank you ...
A great thank for you, may god bless you :)
I have just loved reading: I do like your writing style, conversational, easy to read.
Thank you!
GREAT HELP THANKS
Google Search :) : fedora core 10 root password
The subjects says all.
-leo from são paulo/brazil
ThankYou
Thanks!!!! I can now login as a root and install yum packages!
Many thanks
I followed your procedure OK. But the login page won't accept user root and the new password. However when I'm logged in as a user I can successfully do "su root" with the new password.
Any ideas?
CB
Hi,
Are you login in on GDM or on a text terminal or console?
You may want to read this:
http://frankmash.blogspot.com/2005/10/disable-root-login-computer-securi...
http://www.go2linux.org/disable-ssh-root-direct-login
maybe you are not allowed to login as root.
Hi,
Thanks for your prompt reply.
I was sure you had solved my problem when I found that "PermitRootLogin yes" was commented out in /etc/ssh/sshd_config (following the instructions in the second link you suggested).
So I uncommented it and restarted the ssh service. But this hasn't changed anything - I can still do an su root from a text window in my login but the start up login screen still tells me that it cannot authorize a root login.
I've also checked the first link you gave but that doesn't help as my /etc/securetty
file looks normal.
CB
Hi,
using the discussion on the following site has made FC10 behave the way I want it to (at least as far as root login goes):
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467792
It seems this is a feature ... . Probably important for big systems with remote logins but just an inconvenience for my home system where I'm the only user.
Thanks for your help. Without your original post I wouldn't have been able to get to the root account at all.
CB
Thanx buddy...u really helped me a lot....keep up the good work...
Thank you! You saved me, after a frustrating second install of FC10 (glitches on this machine, or on the install process, who knows?). I didn't want to go through that again.
Thanks for the beautiful magic and the easy to follow instructions. This was gold, and worked even on my multiboot setup. :-)
wah bhai wah...!!!
i forgot my passwd in linux & i 'm nt able to install any OS on it, bt now i can after geting my new root passwd
really help ful
Amazing !!!!!!!!! and the images worth more than 1000 words I think no need to say further ...cheers
i cannot see e edit option on my screen Iam using Grub Rehat linux 0.9
i cannot put my username and password and its showing my account is expired shouls call the administrator
but its a home PC there is no admin
wat to do pls help me out
so i have to re install Linux
thnx
Atif
Tk. you save my day.
Thanks a ton for the info. i just upgraded one of our production servers to Fedora 10 and had an issue with it accepting the password we set at install. just an fwi the new Fedora 10 package is awesome. keep the great info like this coming a lot of people that are new to Linux or just coming back to this OS need as much sensible help as they can get.
Thanks a lot!
I'll repost it with a spanish translation on my blog, to help a friend.
Thanks a lot again.
Sure, go on, you can even use the images, but please give the credits.
Guillermo Garron
Thanks a lot.
thanks i install vmware root password is unknown.but now i reset that password with ur help
thankx man thankx
Thank you so much for this article. I tried several different ways to log into the single user mode, only this one worked!
You are welcome
Guillermo Garron
You saved a lot of hassle. A one liner for you - "Its a magic only until you discover how to do it"!
Thank you very much for your words, and I am glad it was useful for you, keep coming.
Guillermo Garron