Kali user name/password login not working

Retro6 · 12 Jun 2019 at 12:10

Why do developers have to put this rubbish into what could be decent Linux operating systems... After installing Kali Linux it worked fine the default username is "root" and the default password is "toor" and has always been but today I'm locked out the root account I can't get into Kali because my user name and password is not working. The computer has never been online so its not been hacked and I'm the only person who used this computer I spent ages on this computer getting all my hard drives set up with dual booting with other operating systems. This was going to replace my main computer which is getting slightly sluggish.

I've gone through the recovery option in Kali but then gets stuck and says root account is locked.

Is there anyway I can sort this out without having to completely re do everything?

I've looked online for help but everything revolves around virtual box which is no help as I'm using a real computer.

h4rm0ny · 15 Jun 2019 at 08:31

A quick search found this:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-reset-kali-linux-root-password

Also, a good practice is to put your /home and any other relevant directories on their own partition. Means you can reinstall the OS with minimal upset. Also, I have to ask why Kali? That's a specialised distro for penetration testing.

Tom B · 15 Jun 2019 at 15:18

why are you using Kali as a daily driver? It's not intended as such and the nature of it actually makes it less secure than a normal desktop distro.

edit: Related link: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noob...n_letter_to_linux_noobs_regarding_kali_linux/

Retro6 · 15 Jun 2019 at 23:22

h4rm0ny said:
A quick search found this:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-reset-kali-linux-root-password

Also, a good practice is to put your /home and any other relevant directories on their own partition. Means you can reinstall the OS with minimal upset. Also, I have to ask why Kali? That's a specialised distro for penetration testing.

Thanks I'll try that later. I've found Kali to be very useful for certain tasks which is why I chose to install it but I also have Windows 7 on another hard drive dual booting so that I can switch to Windows for normal desktop use I also have Lubuntu on another hard drive. This computer has three hard drives.