We have got many changes in Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS , one of the many changes  GRUB 2 version. Reset the password through  single user mode we are using in RHEL 5 and RHEL 6 version but here it will different from older versions.

Below is the new procedure to reset  the root password , if we forget or lost our root password in CentOS or RHEL latest version like 7 , 8 and 9 .

Use below procedure carefully and mistake can make your machine unstable, first try  l test machine on your own risk.

Show Forget  root password and reboot the CentOS server

Here  I am showing the  screen  of  trying to login through GUI  in  Linux  box  and not getting success in login through GUI , same will be implement as command line interface.

GRUB 2  Edit Menu Option

In new version of GRUB , we will not use single-user mode , In  GRUB2  we have the  Rescue Mode / Emergency mode in  new version .

First  start or reboot your machine and wait for GRUB 2 booting menu screen , it will show in image below and press “e” edit key  to edit the grub 2 menu option after grub 2 loaded .

In editing GRUB 2 menu option  go down . Search “linux16” or “linuxefi” line using the up and down

arrow keys and go to the end of the line and add  “rd.break” keyword .

After set rd.break key word in the end of the line press ctrl+x  to boot or start  the process.

Reset the root password

Now the Emergency  shell mode or rescue shell mode will available  for reset the password .

First we will remount  the sysroot file system  in read and write mode . Then use chroot to got into a chroot jait at /sysroot  through below commands .

 # mount –o remount,rw  /sysroot

 # chroot /sysroot 

Now we will git passwd command in the command line and press same password twice for reset root password.

In the Last point make sure that all unlabled files ( including shadow ) get relabled during boot with below command.

 # touch /.autorelabel 

Type exit two time s after run autoreleble activity. The first will exit the chroot jail and the second will exit the initramfs debug shell.

Find below all the commands  history which we use to reset the password.

Now we have to reset the password of root . After exit two times system will boot again and check given root credentials is working properly.

I have got root screen  ..   🙂