[nmglug] dude, wheres my password?

[Karl Hegbloom]

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 15:15 -0600, Sam Noble wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 15:05 -0600, Ed Brown wrote:
> > Here's one more suggestion, 'cause I think it's simpler than anything
> > suggested so far, though perhaps only by a little.  And it doesn't
> > require a rescue cd.   
> > 
> > Just replace 'init=/bin/bash' in Karl's suggestion with 'single', or
> > even '1', to boot into single user mode. You'll get your root prompt
> > without having to login.   You don't have to mount or remount anything. 
> > Just run passwd, and type exit, and you'll go straight to your default
> > runlevel, without having to reboot.
> 
> Ed, this doesn't work on many distros. It will get you to the place you
> want, but then asks for the root password. However on Mandrake, older RH
> (suse maybe?) and perhaps ubuntu warty, but definitely not Debian it
> will work.

In Debian based distros, setting SULOGIN to yes in /etc/default/rcS will
cause 'init' to run the 'sulogin' rather than a shell when entering
single user mode.  'sulogin' requires you to type the root password.