How To Boot into Single-User Mode in CentOS 8 / RHEL 8

When booted into single user mode:

• Only root can login
• No password is needed
• No services are started

Single user mode is great for:

• Troubleshooting
• Resetting lost passwords
• Other common administrative tasks

Steps to boot into single user mode on RHEL 8:

• While booting, you will need to press any key once the grub menu is displayed. This will stop the system from automatically booting up.
• Select whichever boot option / kernel you want fromt he menu.
• Press ‘e’ to edit the arguments. You should now see configuration for this boot option.
• Use the arrows to move to the line that starts with ‘linux’.
• Delete the argument ‘ro’.
• Replace the deleted ‘ro’ text with this text all still on that same line:

rw init=/sysroot/bin/sh

• Press [Ctrl] - x

• The system will now boot up into single user mode and you will see a prompt.

• Mount the root file system:

chroot /sysroot

• Do whatever maintainence tasks you need.

• Exit the chroot environment:

exit

Reboot the host:

reboot