You need a root password to ssh into and reboot a remote machine
that stopped accepting logins from normal users (stuck NFS, stuck NIS,
out of memory, dead user home directory disk, borked pam, etc).

Definition of remote machine? Not under your desk; takes longer
than 5 minutes to walk to a different building to press the reset
button; it's at CERN and you have to send an email to somebody
to go find it and press the reset button. etc.

Why not "login as normal user and sudo into root?", see above,
machine is borked and does not accept login from normal user.


K.O.


On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 01:52:35PM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jul 2019, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> 
> > > sudo passwd root
> > 
> > If he had sudo access, why would he need or want a root password?
> 
> a root password, rather than mediated 'sudo' access is needed 
> from time to time
> 
> Before the system is up and recognizing, to do fsck' and such 
> which require the root password to be executed, comes to mind
> 
> 
> -- Russ herrold

-- 
Konstantin Olchanski
Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow!
Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca
Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada