How to Reset Root Password on CentOS 8

First, reboot or power on your CentOS 8 system. Next, press ‘e’ on the keyboard to interrupt the boot process to make changes.

Find ro (read-only) kernel parameter as showed below.

Replace ro with rw and append an extra init=/sysroot/bin/sh.

After making the changes, press Ctrl + X on the keyboard to enter single-user mode.

Now mount the root file system in read and write mode.

:/# chroot /sysroot

Now set your root password as you like:

:/# passwd root

Now, run the below command to enable SELinux relabelling.

:/# touch /.autorelabel

To apply the changes, exit and reboot the CentOS 8 system.

:/# exit
:/# reboot

Reboot can take some times. After reboot your centos 8 system login with your new root password.

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