How To: Recover the Linux root password

1. Boot server from the installation CD.
2. Then select any installation method or Rescue System.
3. At the first installation screen when selecting language, press ctrl-alt-f2 to open a virtual console.

   Note: If you selected Rescue System, select your keyboard language and then a Rescue Login prompt should appear. Login as root.

4. Type
   fdisk -l
   to list the partitions. Locate the Linux root partition.
5. Type
   mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
   (replace sda4 with the device name for the Linux root partition identified in the previous step or the respective LVM device name).
6. Run
   mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
   to make the device files available (this is needed for access to the urandom device which may be used by the passwd command below).
7. Enter
   chroot /mnt
8. Now enter
   passwd root
   and reset the root password.
9. Type
   exit
   to leave the chroot environment.
10. Reboot the system.

The command "mount-rootfs-and-do-chroot.sh" has been added to the rescue system of later versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise to ease the process of mounting the root device as well as the proc, sys and dev directories. The script is used as follows below:
 

1.) mount-rootfs-and-do-chroot.sh <rootdevice>, e.g.:
    mount-rootfs-and-do-chroot.sh /dev/sda4 

or in case the root device resides on a LVM device:

    mount-rootfs-and-do-chroot.sh /dev/rootvg/root

2.) mount -a

The mount -a command inside the chroot environment ensures all other filesystems specified in /etc/fstab are mounted as well.