error message Unknown user name 'root' when changing password

Question

I mounted a guest centos system and changed inittab file to single user mode. Then I unmounted it and used virsh console to access the guest system in single user mode. However I got 'unknown user name' message as following:

[root@guest34 /]# passwd root

passwd: Unknown user name 'root'.

Answer 1

Try using just passwd without the username.