<p>System security is very important, however there are times when a system becomes so secure that the owner of the system becomes locked out of their own computer. There are a couple different methods for recovering a locked system.</p>
<p><strong>1.1</strong> Issues resulting in a locked system</p>
<p>There are many things which may lock someone out of their system. The most notable ones are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Forgotten root password</li>
<li>Problematic PAM configuration</li>
</ul>
<p>There are two methods for recovering a system locked out by these issues, one of which should be set up by default.</p>
<h2>2 - Rescue Partition</h2>
<p><strong>2.1</strong> Introduction</p>
<p>Everest includes a small rescue partition in its system images, which contains only what is necessary to recover a system. Using this partition, system recovery is a relatively easy task.</p>
<p><strong>2.2</strong> Booting</p>
<p>While installing, either GRUB automatically created a boot entry for the rescue partition, or you did it yourself. If not, the rescue partition is unusable for recovery.</p>
<p>To boot into the rescue partition, power off your system, and select <cil>Everest Linux (rescue)</cil> in the GRUB boot menu.</p>
<h2>3 - Using BASH as init</h2>
<p><strong>3.1</strong> Introduction</p>
<p>The Linux kernel supports setting a custom init using kernel parameters. In this instance, we will use <cil>bash</cil> as our init to recover a locked system.</p>
<p><strong>3.2</strong> Booting</p>
<p>Power off your system. While booting, edit your boot entry's kernel parameters. On GRUB, this can be done with the <cil>e</cil> key.</p>
<p>Add the following to your kernel parameters:</p>
<khead><strong>KERNEL:</strong> Required kernel parameters to use BASH as init</khead>
<divclass="kernel">
<p>init="/bin/bash"</p>
</div>
</div>
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<p>Page last updated MM/DD/YY @ HH:MM</p>
<p>Page licensed under GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later</p>
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<p>Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.</p>
<p>Everest Linux is provided AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY.</p>
