Resetting Kali Linux Root Password

Kali Linux Change Root Password From The Grub Boot Loader

I have come across several cases in which people actually forget their login passwords. It can be very frustrating if that was the login password to your root account on a Linux system. But luckily there is a way of changing the login password. If you are using Virtual Machine, VMWare Virtual Box and ARM images, then 'toor' is usually the default password for Kali Linux.

It should come to your attention that the possibility of changing your root password when not logged in, comes both as a hacking opportunity,loophole of sorts, as well as a security issue.

All in all, the one thing to consider is that as long as you have a Unix based system, e.g. Kali Linux in this case, you are as good as f*cked up if someone gets physical access to your computer. That is to say, if i have your computer, i very well own it!

Now let's go straight on how to change root password.

Changing Kali Linux Root Password from the Grub Boot Loader.

Restart your Kali Linux. From the GRUB Boot Loader, choose Advanced Options for Kali GNU/Linux. Select Recovery Mode, and then press 'e' to enter recovery edit mode, to change how or the way in which your Kali Linux will boot up. Technically, we are changing the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg which contains booting info.

Using the Arrow keys for navigation, find and go to the 'ro', in front of the UUID of your installed Kali Linux.

Change it from ro to rw. This allows us to change it from Read Only (ro)
to Read Write (rw) mode/permissions. Thus making changes to the booting up info stored in the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

Then add init=/bin/bash at end of the term initrd=/install/gtk/initrd.gz. just before the term quiet.

Now press the F10 function key to reboot the system with the new commands.

To change the password of your root account, now type:
    passwd root

Enter the new password with confirmation password too until you get a verbose output that the password has been updated successfully.

Password Successfully Updated

You may now reboot your system and login with the recently updated password. Everything should be just fine from there on-wards. 

Typing reboot on the command interface presently at will not work, the command isn't recognized. So, just type this to reboot:
        exec /sbin/init

Or you could as well, forcibly shutdown the system and boot it up again, no problemo.

Be careful not to forget the password, or actually please do for you already have a solution to that.

Please share this info to help all other guys in such a mess of having forgotten their
login password.