The installation program will next prompt you to set a root password for your system (see Figure 73). You'll use the root password to log into your Red Hat Linux system for the first time.
The root password must be at least six characters long; the password you type is not echoed to the screen. You must enter the password twice; if the two passwords do not match, the installation program will ask you to enter them again.
You ought to make the root password something you can remember, but not something that is easy for someone else to guess. Your name, your phone number, qwerty, password, root, 123456, and anteater are all examples of poor passwords. Good passwords mix numerals with upper and lower case letters and do not contain dictionary words: Aard387vark or 420BMttNT, for example. Remember that the password is case-sensitive. Write down this password and keep it in a secure place.
Please Note: The root user (also known as the superuser) has complete access to the entire system; for this reason, logging in as the root user is best done only to perform system maintenance or administration. Please see Chapter 8 for instructions on how to add a user account for yourself after you reboot your system. A more basic method of creating a new user account can also be found in the Official Red Hat Linux Getting Started Guide in the Welcome to Linux chapter.