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  • Once I'd figured out that $6$ means it's a SHA-512 hash, I found the answer here: unix.stackexchange.com/q/52108/46851 Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 10:35
  • If you don't trust su to use the root password (which it should), then I must assume your machine is compromised in some way. Is that correct? Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:13
  • No. I'm not worried about compromise. I don't trust myself to not get confused between su and sudo. By taking them out of the equation, I can verify only the hash in /etc/shadow, without anything else in the way. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:18
  • For example: it's possible that there's a configuration setting that causes su to allow me to use my user password in the same way as sudo does. Is there? Probably not. But I don't know for sure. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 11:19
  • No. I'm not planning on reimplementing su; that would be stupid. After the "Apple re-enables your root account without a password" thing today, I went looking to see if I had a root password. To my surprise, I did. I found the other question ("Why is the root password on Linux Mint...?"). I was looking for a good way to simply (i.e. no su, no sudo, no ssh) see what password the root account had. So: verify the hash. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 17:42