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I hope that I can find some ideas here on how to solve this specific problem that I have: I am supplied with a computer running on scientific linux 7. Unfortunately though, the root password is not known anymore, I only have the credentials of another account (account1). I tried to recover the root pw by using the init=/bin/bash method, just as explained here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Reset_lost_root_password
Unfortunately though, I cant login at all anymore now, neither with the root user nor with account1. This is extremely strange to me as I didn't even touch the password of account1. I would appreciate all ideas that you guys may have.
Thanks in advance and best regards :)
I-Dont-Understand
Posted 2019-07-02T13:44:04.127
Reputation: 1
3Can you still login with init=/bin/bash? If yes, you can undo whatever mistake you made (or make it worse if you don't know what you are doing). Alternatively, take out the harddisk, connect it directly to another computer, and fix whatever system files need fixing this way. – dirkt – 2019-07-02T17:59:37.660
1Just to be sure: could different keyboard layouts lead to a wrong password entry in your case? E.g.
init=/bin/bashloading US English and your boot loading some other layout. – Fiximan – 2019-07-02T18:03:56.893@dirkt : I do all the steps that I made again. This doesn´t change the actual problem though... I tried it a few times, but I always get the same problem: My changed password is accepted but I can´t login, neither directly on the system nor via an ssh connection. Unfortunately I am a beginner at Linux - so I don´t really know what I am doing :( – I-Dont-Understand – 2019-07-02T20:45:09.117
@Fiximan : could be true... I am using an us keyboard on a german linux distribution. The first step (init=/bin/bash) is typed using the normal us configuration while the bash console expects a german keyboard... neither the usernames nor the passwords contain chars that differ from us to german keyboards though – I-Dont-Understand – 2019-07-02T20:48:24.587
1Alternatively to setting a new password, did you try to just delete it (
passwd -d)? Of course you should not connect to any network while having no root password, but just an empty entry (hit enter when asked) could do the trick. – Fiximan – 2019-07-02T20:54:24.6471It's possible that not the password is the problem, but you (accidentally) changed something else, and now after it accepts the password, the initialization script runs into a problem and dies, and therefore you can't log in. This is very difficult to "remotely debug" in a Q&A. If you are "supplied" that computer, ask whoever supplied it to you. Or ask someone near you who is more familiar with Linux. Did you try to log in from a text console (press Ctrl-Alt-F2 at the login screen) as well? – dirkt – 2019-07-03T05:56:14.370
Thanks for all the help guys... I understand that it is very difficult to help me through only sentences in a forum ^^ I also tried to delete the passwords with passwd -d for root and account1, but I made it even worse I think :( Now the machine wont even boot to the login screen - so I cant even check if deleting the password was successfull. When booting though, I see an error message which I think was not there yesterday - it says: Problem loading in-kernel X.509 certificate (-65). Anyone a clue what this means? Unfortunately the only experienced linux user around is on holidays... – I-Dont-Understand – 2019-07-03T09:55:13.267
Hi all, I would like to give you guys some feedback and thank you once again for your help :)... Our linux admin was back from holidays and helped me out. I did everything correct in terms of resetting the password (even though I am a linux noob :D) but some kind of setting in the security enhancement function of linux caused the computer not to start anymore because it thought it was an harmful attacker who tried to change the pw... The admin fixed it, sometimes you need a specialist with whom you can talk and show the problem in person :) – I-Dont-Understand – 2019-07-08T14:16:36.133