When fogetting assigned login name rather than password
I'm running a series of experiments installing multiple versions
of Squeeze on a dedicated machine. The machine is dedicated to
experimentation and the lifetime of any install may intentionally
be only hours or days.
The complete hard drive is wiped at least once a month. I
consistently use my name as the login on the first install of any
series. The login of any subsequent install will be a mnemonic
associated associated with the current experiment.
I just tried to bring up an install without a GUI. I had
forgotten the login name I had assigned a week ago. I solved the
immediate problem by rebooting to the install on sda1 and using
it to examine /etc/passwd on sda7.
If another OS had not been available but I knew the root
password, is there some way I could have gained access as root?
TIA
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