grub use for root password lockout
 

Hi guys!

My problem is this:
Somebody for whatever "hacking trip" got the server's password and changed it. (Fortunately, this server is used solely for instruction/educational purpose only and stand-alone.) So not very much damage done except that I was locked out.

The RH v9 manual says (if I remember it right) that I can recover the root privilege by rebooting and waiting for the grub loader to appear. When it does, press 'e' and grub should showup lines by pressing the arrow keys until a specified line comes out. Then edit this line by appending 'single' word. Then, let it continue booting (this time, it must be single user or 'init 1').

Unfortunately, when the grub line appeared during boot, it is not responding to the 'e' letter.

I have two computers, both installed with RHv9. Last week, the same incident happened and I reinstalled that one. Re-installation takes too long.
Anybody who can help me please recover my root privilege or help with the correct sequence of grub

Thank you all very much in advance.

Its odd - grub should allow you to edit the things when you press e, think its e. There is usually stuff on the grub screen to tell you what to do. Perhaps try c ?for a command line and then if 'single' does not work try init=init -s, probably the wrong syntax but it may work, on the end of the line with 'kernel' on it. You may have to put 'boot' as the last comand to ask it to boot.