Forgotten Password - LINUX

You can log in using single-user mode and create a new root password.

To enter single-user mode, reboot your computer. If you use the default boot loader, GRUB, you can enter single user mode by performing the following:

1.At the boot loader menu, type [e] to enter into editing mode.

2.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 [e].

3.Press the Spacebar once to add a blank space, then add the word single to tell GRUB to boot into single-user Linux mode. Press [Enter] to make the editing change take effect.

4.You will be brought back to the edit mode screen. From here, press [b] and GRUB will boot single-user Linux mode. After it finishes loading, you will be presented with a shell prompt similar to the following:

sh-2.05#

5.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. You can then reboot by typing reboot at the prompt; then you can log in to root as you normally would.