Root login name changed
 

We have a test-machine of RHEL AS3 on a VMWare server. Was running beautifully ...until someone mistakenly changed the root account's username to something else, let's call it koot.

When doing a less /etc/passwd, this is what I get:

-koot: o:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
t root 2880 Dec 27 15:52 passwd:

Some of us had sudoers rights which no longer work (sudo: no passwd entry for root!).

My particular account is part of the root group:

kinetik:x:500:501:Kinetik:/home/kinetik:/bin/bash


I can't make any changes whatsoever that can get the root account back to a working state...



Is there any way I can get this sorted out without having to reinstall?

Moderator Note: Title changed, "Tough One" doesn't describe your actual question or your thread.

Boot your system with a rescue disk, edit your password and shadow files, reboot.

Does logging in as "koot" work? If so, login as that username and edit the root section in /etc/passwd to something like,
Normally I would suggest using the Redhat installation CD or a Live CD to rescue the system, but I am not sure how you would do this using vmware.

That's the problem right there... I was hoping there's a way to recover it 'live', but it seems the only hope I got is to try & boot from CD in VMWare and go from there...


Anyway, thanks for the advice all. I'll post back here as soon as I solved this and let you know which route I took (fixed using bootdisk, reinstall etc.).