Different actions on different passwords?

[Chris Murphy]

On Jan 2, 2014, at 9:32 AM, Steve Searle <steve at stevesearle.com> wrote:

> Around 12:43am on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 (UK time), Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> 
>> Conclusion: better look for some other way to cover your tracks, and note
>> that a forensic investigation can be carried out without having you log in
>> at all.
> 
> Just to emphasise what Patrick says, if you boot Linux into singe user
> mode, you can get root access without needing a password, which would
> bypass any setup you had done this way.

Not on Fedora 20 at least, and I think since even Fedora 19, if you use "single" boot param you startup to rescue.target. It asks for a root password or to press Control-D to continue. If I control-D to continue, startup proceeds to default.target. That's typically multi-user.target (runlevel 3), or graphical.target (runlevel 5).

I could boot from alternate media, and presumably mount and chroot this installation, and compel a change to the root password. But apparently not from the installation itself.

Chris Murphy