The official training for RHSCA 7 describes the “change root password” procedure as below:
Append “rd.break” to the kernel command line that starts with linux16 (this will break just before control is handed from the initramfs to the actual system) (sometimes it is needed to delete also everything after “…mapper/rhel-root ro” and append here)
mount -o remount,rw /sysroot
chroot /sysroot
passwd
touch /.autorelabel
exit