Passwd: Permission denied

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I'm unable to reset a root user password in single user mode. RHEL7

Getting an error,

"Passwd: Permission denied"

VA
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MY Expert 955 points
22 April 2019 9:58 PM

It could be a lot of things, but you could check whether the root file system is read-only (eg. can you create a file anywhere), and run setenforce 0 to make sure selinux isn't getting in the way.

KZ Newbie 7 points
23 April 2019 7:06 PM

You are in single user mode so you don't specify users, make sure your root filesystem is mounted in read/write "mount -o remount,rw /" then passwd

SW Red Hat Guru 4442 points
24 April 2019 7:28 AM

Hello, are you following the procedure in the System Administrator's Guide?[1]

Quoting from there: "Note that in GRUB 2, resetting the password is no longer performed in single-user mode "

[1] 25.10.4. Changing and Resetting the Root Password