Root account password on fresh install

[pro-kitten]

Sorry if this question might be something that is obvious to you, but I am seemingly missing a key piece of information about running this system.
While the main section of wiki about installing AlmaLinux clearly mentions a step about initializing superuser password here:

https://wiki.almalinux.org/documentation/installation-guide.html#user-settings

This initialization screen is not available for Raspberry Pi users as it skips straight to login screen.

I've read through the whole page dedicated to Raspberry Pi in this section:

https://wiki.almalinux.org/documentation/raspberry-pi.html

But there is no mention about initializing the superuser or what is the default password for the superuser account anywhere in this entire document.

The only information I managed to acquire is that root account is apparently locked by default.

There was a guy who already asked this question but instead of receiving an actual answer he was simply told off that ssh login is deprecated?

#16

The image I am using is AlmaLinux Kitten 10

I am testing the root login by typing su into console then following it up with a password.

This is the cloud-init config I have tried which I found on forums dedicated to CentOS

#cloud-config
#
# This is default cloud-init config file for AlmaLinux Raspberry Pi image.
#
# If you want additional customization, refer to cloud-init documentation and
# examples. Please note configurations written in this file will be usually
# applied only once at very first boot.
#
# https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/examples.html

hostname: almalinux.local
ssh_pwauth: false

users:
  - name: Kitten
    groups: [ adm, systemd-journal ]
    sudo: [ "ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" ]
    lock_passwd: false
    passwd: $6$rounds=99999$SomeSalt999$myHashedPassword.
    # Uncomment below to add your SSH public keys as YAML array
    #ssh_authorized_keys:
      #- ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3Nz...
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root: $6$rounds=99999$SomeSalt999$myHashedPassword.
  expire: False

While this does change the password for the main user and the username, the superuser remains unaffected and I am unable to access the superuser using the same password.

I also tried a different version that was suggested in a stackoverflow post and by copilot

#cloud-config
#
# This is default cloud-init config file for AlmaLinux Raspberry Pi image.
#
# If you want additional customization, refer to cloud-init documentation and
# examples. Please note configurations written in this file will be usually
# applied only once at very first boot.
#
# https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/examples.html

hostname: almalinux.local
ssh_pwauth: false

users:
  - name: root
    passwd: $6$rounds=99999$SomeSalt999$myHashedPassword.
    lock_passwd: false
    ssh_pwauth: true
    
  - name: Kitten
    groups: [ adm, systemd-journal, wheel ]
    sudo: [ "ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" ]
    lock_passwd: false
    passwd: $6$rounds=99999$SomeSalt999$myHashedPassword.
    # Uncomment below to add your SSH public keys as YAML array
    #ssh_authorized_keys:
      #- ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3Nz...
chpasswd:
  expire: False

But instead of changing the password for the root user it simply states during the boot logs that "Cannot change password for already existing user root"

Care to enlighten me?
Because either you are missing a crucial piece of information in your documentation or I am too retarded to find it.

[metalefty]

You don't need to login with root user directly at all. Use sudo.

[pro-kitten]

Okay but what about the situation when I want to run a piece of software in elevated privilages, as in for example a server through a terminal available in vscode. And instead of having to manually specify sudo for each command I just want the terminal to enter the su mode?

[metalefty]

Reset the root password to whatever you like using sudo.

[pro-kitten]

Wow, thank you for the actual answer 🫶
Is there a particular reason as to why this information is not included anywhere in the documentation?
Or is this some sort of basic level linux knowledge everyone in this world should apparently know?

[metalefty]

I believe that using a sudo-capable user account (such as almalinux in this case) and obtaining superuser privileges on demand, instead of using the root account directly, is a standard practice in today's cloud era.