This chapter answers some of the most common questions about using
Red Hat Linux that you may ask as you become more familiar with it. From
recovering forgotten passwords to troubleshooting package installation
problems, this chapter will ease you step-by-step through some common
tasks and get you on your way.
16.1. Localhost Login and Password
I have installed Red Hat Linux. After rebooting, I get a message telling
me it needs a localhost login and password. What are these?
Unless you specified a host name for your computer, or received that
information from a network, your Red Hat Linux installation will call your machine
localhost.localdomain by default.
When you get to that initial prompt, it is asking you to log in to
your system. If you created a user account with the
Setup Agent, you can log in using that
user name and password. If you did not create a user account, then you
can log in as the super user, also known as
root. The root password is the system password
you assigned during installation.
It is highly recommended that you create at least one user account
for regular use of your Red Hat Linux system. You can create a new user after
logging in as root with the User Manager
graphical tool or the useradd shell prompt
utility. For more information, refer to Section 1.6 Creating a User Account.
