ultrastupid password question

[Net Llama!]

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Mike Reinehr wrote:
> I have a question about the instructions listed in cracking.html:
>
>     on either the GRUB or LILO boot line, put: init=/bin/sh
>     when you have a root prompt, do the following:
>         mount -n -o remount,rw /
>         passwd root
>     (provide new password twice)
>         mount -n -o remount,ro /
>         sync;sync;sync
>     hit the reset switch
>
>  The instructions call for flushing the filesystem buffers, _after_ remounting
> the root file system read only. I learned to do this years ago, also, before
> doing a haltsys, but in this instance, does this really accomplish anything?
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense to do this just prior to the remount command, or
> does mount handle flushing the buffers, too?

I'm a bit confused by the above instructions myself.  If a filesystem is
mounted read-only, then there is no data to flush, because it hasn't
changed on disk.  It would seem to me that the sync calls needs to occur
_Before_ mounting read-only, not afterwards.