> 
> At the very least we should not ask a novice user to use vim to mess with a
> shadow file. That's just brutal.
>

I read this and smiled. So many things wrong with this and on so many levels!

 
> If the command
>    mount -o rw,remount /
> 
> works for them, then the user can just run
>    passwd danny
> to change the password for the "danny" user.
> 

Superuser privilleges assumed for all the above. Now one needs only explain
to a novice user how to get that...