Resetting the Root Password of RHEL-8
Resolution
1) Break the boot sequence by adding ‘rd.break’ at kernel stanza in grub. To do this, restart your system and when the GRUB splash screen comes:
- Select/highlight the kernel you wish to boot using the up/down arrow keys.
- Press the e key to edit the entry.
- Select/highlight the line starting with the word kernel or linux.
- Press the e key to edit the line.
- Add ‘rd.break’ at the end.
- Press ENTER to accept the changes.
- Press the ‘ctrl + x’ key to boot the kernel with the modified command line.
2) The system will provide a shell which will be from initramfs:
. . Entering emergency mode. Exit the shell to continue. Type "journalctl" to view system logs. You might want to save "/run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt" to a USB stick or /boot after mounting them and attach it to a bug report. switch_root:/#
3) Root filesystem will be mounted read-only at ‘sysroot’ directory:
switch_root:/# mount | grep -i sysroot /dev/mapper/rhel-root on /sysroot type xfs (ro,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota)
4) Remount it with read-write mode:
switch_root:/# mount -o remount,rw /sysroot
5) Chroot into it:
switch_root:/# chroot /sysroot/
sh-4.4#
6) Change the password:
sh-4.4# passwd Changing password for user root. New password: BAD PASSWORD: The password is shorter than 8 characters Retype new password: passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
7) Relabel the filesystem:
sh-4.4# touch /.autorelabel
8) Exit from the shell:
sh-4.4# exit exit switch_root:/# switch_root:/# exit
9) The system will continue the paused booting sequence:
. Starting Relabel all filesystems... [ OK ] Started Manage Sound Card St localhost login: