Why doesn't RHEL server ask for a password in single user mode? Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.6 (Santiago), in case it's relevant.
I had many cases where I had to reset root password in single user mode, I tried to figure out why system does not ask password in single user mode ( Run level 1).
Because there's actually no point in most cases.
If the system is not physically secured and does not have boot access locked down properly, you don't even need to use single user mode to do things you would normally use it for, you can just boot some other OS on the system and do the same things.
If the system is physically secured (regardless of whether boot access is locked down or not), then you realistically don't need a password, because anybody who could get to the system to use single-user mode already has access to the system via other means, and doesn't need single-user mode (IOW, being able to pass the physical security checks is sufficient authorization for access to single user mode).
The only time it is potentially helpful is if the system is not physically secured, but you have the boot sequence locked down such that people can't boot alternate operating systems on the device. However, such a situation actually isn't very common outside of big enterprise settings (the same type of setting where you would run Windows systems with the main user no having admin access to the system), and it's not hard for them to just enable password protection.
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