LKBEN10996: Howto change your root password after you forgot it
Symptom
You forgot your root password and need to get into the system
Cause
You should not forget your root password!
Solution
When you forget your root password, you need at least physical access to the server or system. You have to make it possible to boot into single user mode which depends on your bootloader. You can search in the lubby database to find some entries.
After you started in single user mode you can change the password with the passwd command.
When the boot loader grub or lilo are password protected you need a few more tricks. You need at least a rescue disk. (a CD / DVD) After you started you need to mount the disks of the system and chroot into them.
chroot /mnt/mydisk
This assumes you mounted your root disk on /mnt/mydisk. Now you can change your password with the passwd command again.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this document is intended for your information only. Lubby makes no claims to the validity of this information. Use of this information is at own risk!About the Author
Author: - Keskon GmbH & Co. KG
Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience, including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform.