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I currently have a satellite server within my offline environment, and i have recently taken over this network. Over the past couple of years there have been multiple administrators to this system. However prior to my predecessor the password has since been lost.

Is there a way i can live boot to change a satellite servers root password?

or

Is there a specific way to boot into a commandline interface?

At this point in time i dont know whether i am on Satellite 6 or 7.
Any information would be very grateful at the moment, as i am lost at this point.

LT
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R. Hinton.'s picture Guru 10133 points
12 September 2018 12:10 AM

edited, see next post I made, apologies

Liam, try this link from the Red Hat documentation, I used it once and it worked. scroll down at that link

Regards,

RJ

LT Newbie 15 points
12 September 2018 6:41 AM

Hi RJ,

Thank you for your post, unfortunately i cannot even get to the command line, when i SSH or Console in i get asked for a username and password immediately. Is there a way to get to the command line another way? such as during boot? I know this is possible in RHEL 6 & 7 during the bootmenu. Is this the same case with satellite? if so please could you give me some sort of a command that this would be possible with.

LT Newbie 15 points
12 September 2018 7:22 AM

Hi RJ, so my issue is i have access to the Web App GUI now, I was trying root not admin. However this same password and user combination does not work on the physical machine. Even if i change the boot parameter to 'single' this has been locked out. I am running v6.2.6

R. Hinton.'s picture Guru 10133 points
12 September 2018 11:32 AM

Sorry I missed that first try, I know we get trained on root recovery in RH classes.

That being said, here's a more efficient way. Now if someone put a password on grub, you might need a boot DVD. If it is VMware, you might need a boot ISO.

For Red Hat systems particularly running SELinux in Enforcing mode, this is a superior way to deal with resetting the root password and the relabeling of /etc/shadow, vs. doing a "touch /.autorelabel" which hits everything. This is particularly noteworthy if a system has a giant RAID or SAN attached.

Credit, Red Hatter
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/918283#comment-1274541

  1. At the beginning of the boot process, at the GRUB 2 menu (Kernel list), type the e key to edit the kernel
  2. Move down to the kernel line (the line starting with linux16)
  3. Remove rhgb quiet using the backspace key.
  4. Add rd.break enforcing=0
    NOTE: you might have to make "console=tty0" in step 4 as well depending if it's virtual or not, and other factors
  5. Press Ctrl x to resume the boot process. NOTE: instead of doing #6 below, instead at step #3 above, change "ro" to "rw" in the grub line
  6. # mount –o remount,rw /sysroot
  7. # chroot /sysroot
  8. # passwd
  9. Retype the password
  10. Type exit twice to continue the boot process
  11. Log in as root
  12. # restorecon -Rv /etc/shadow
  13. # setenforce 1

Let us know how it goes

Regards

RJ

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