For one of my VMs I forgot to note which of the initial password I had changed, so I wanted to check them.
Since I didn’t have a keyboard attached to the console and ssh wasn’t allowing root, I needed an alternative than actual login to test the passwords.
Luckily /etc/shadow, with getent and openssl came to the rescue.
Since getent varies per distribution, here is how it works on OpenSuSE:
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 