Login to your machine, become root (% su - ), and use the command "passwd root".
The change is immediate and permanent.
you can see the (encrypted) root passwd by grepping it ouot of the /etc/shadow file
login as: harryc
harryc@vmhost07's password:
Last login: Wed Jun 24 08:03:07 2009 from 10.2.17.60
-bash-2.05b$ su -
Password:
root@vmhost07 root# grep root /etc/shadow
root:$1$qQ3g5z4G$yyGlMd6a0mX0KmBXoea2/1:13944:0:-1:7:::
root@vmhost07 root#passwd root
Changing password for user root.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
root@vmhost07 root# grep root /etc/shadow
root:$1$7vOnLgXG$IBTSsEgaXLQ0EkuodLM27.:14420:0::7:::
root@vmhost07 root#
An interesting note - I changed the root password to the same root password, note how it is encrypted differently.
