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And yes: for a few days i have problems with one of systems on my PC -LMDE. Recently i got repaired there one thing as shown here : ("Mint" - a bunch of errors in boot). Now i have yet bigger problem - system ask me password for non-existing user (root) error code is here:

Give root password for maintenance (or press Control-D to continue):

When i press these button it shows me:

Reloading system manager configuration
Starting default target
You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type “journal -xb” to view system logs, “systemctl reboot” to reboot, “systemctl default” or “exit” to boot into default mode.
Give root password for maintenance (or press Control-D to continue)

When i chrooted into this OS (with live-boot) i saw that there are problems with sudo and pkexec, so i cant use root even in chroot (and modify system files, etc...) is there any way to boot PC normally or i need to always use “initramfs error” and boot only to busybox cli (i can do that because i accidentally uninstalled grub and now i have cli when booting up pc)?

Ps: I didnt setted up root (su) account (no password, user, etc) and i was really messing up with sudo so now i think that this also doesnt exist.

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Edit: i’ve done it with passwd as @cas said. Now i have bigger problem.

My second problem is that all my partition is r/o. Even with modified /etc/fstab to open all partitions as writable. My system didn’t exited cli to the now - system doesn’t load without writable permission and my current (logged-in) user looks like root (have # before command and whoami shows me as root) but it isn’t. When i try mount command they said that i need to have root permission ( how i cant have them when currently i am root?!). Is there something i forgot, all my PC is corrupt or im a real n00b?

enter image description here

hacknorris
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  • Does this answer your question? [Manually generate password for /etc/shadow](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81240/manually-generate-password-for-etc-shadow) - I.e. manually add the password using a live session. – FelixJN Apr 27 '21 at 16:08
  • run `sudo -i` to get a root shell in the live-cd if you're not already logged in as root, before chrooting into your filesystem. You can then use `passwd` to set a password for root. And fix whatever's broken on your system. fixing it probably involves bind-mounting /proc, /sys, and /dev under the chroot target (e.g. if mounted as /mnt, `for i in proc dev sys ; do mount -o bind /$i /mnt/$i ; done`) before chrooting, and then running `update-grub` and/or `update-initramfs` while in the chroot. – cas Apr 27 '21 at 16:20
  • This sort of problem is why i think some distros are making a huge mistake by discouraging people from setting a root password. Sure, root's password has to be a good, long, secure one and password logins for ssh need to be disabled, but root needs a password. for situations like this, which would be unfixable without a rescue CD/USB/tftp image/etc – cas Apr 27 '21 at 16:25
  • I am always root when i chroot... and okie - i’ll try this method... (because i see that i’ll need to...) – hacknorris Apr 27 '21 at 16:29
  • If you're already root when you chroot, then problems with sudo should be irrelevant - you don't need sudo to fix the system because you're already root and should have RW access to everything. BTW, I just noticed you said you accidentally uninstalled grub - you will need to re-install it while you're in the chroot too. also btw, grub is why you need to do the bind-mounts, grub won't work without them. – cas Apr 27 '21 at 16:39
  • Grub doesnt want to be reinstalled ;) anyways - grub cli is even better cause i can boot to my external hdd and my bios/uefi on pc doesnt support that – hacknorris Apr 27 '21 at 16:40
  • Did it worked https://i.postimg.cc/tJJDr6tM/image.jpg @cas ? – hacknorris Apr 27 '21 at 16:53
  • no. the for loop I gave you was an example that only works **if** the chroot is `/mnt`. Adjust to suit your chroot's mount point (which looks to be /media/mint/). Also, you need to run that loop **before** chrooting, otherwise the bind mount won't work. – cas Apr 27 '21 at 18:38
  • RE: the passwd change failing - did you mount the mint directories read-only? if so, remount it as RW. Or have you changed the perms on /etc/shadow? If so, change them back with `chmod 640 /etc/shadow` while in the chroot. Otherwise try running `passwd root` instead of just `passwd` - some PAM configs can give that error when trying to change a password for a user which doesn't have one yet. – cas Apr 27 '21 at 18:43
  • All filesystem is r/o. Even with modified /etc/fstab (i tried to set it up as rw but even from there it doesn’t work...) – hacknorris Apr 28 '21 at 07:24
  • You've mistyped `remount` as `remout`. and that `-t` option is just wrong - it's not needed AND you've misused it. You **need** to be careful and methodical, stay calm, plan each step in advance, and then double-check everything you type **before** you hit enter. You're messing with the system's boot process, any mistake could be disastrous (and is probably how you got into this mess in the first place). Try `mount -o rw,remount /` (from within the chroot. or, from outside it, use the mount-point - e.g. `mount -o rw,remount /mnt`). – cas Apr 28 '21 at 08:27
  • Yeah? Even when i repaired command i got that : https://i.postimg.cc/wvbsT07x/76-B36-D13-0-B79-4-C2-F-B048-1-AB9-D6-D194-A6.jpg and now i dont use chroot because now i know my “root” password (i set that as simple “admin”) – hacknorris Apr 28 '21 at 09:03

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