[linux-help] Re: root password

[Tom Hull <thull@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For future reference:

You should also be able to boot the system into "single user mode", which will 
give
you a root shell w/o password (assuming you have physical access to the console;
nothing else is running). At your lilo prompt, type

   linux s

replacing "linux" with whatever your kernel is called in /etc/lilo.conf; you can
probably replace "s" with "single" -- I only tested the former.

Once you are running as root, edit /etc/shadow to remove the root password, or
/etc/passwd if you are not using shadow passwords. (Of course, you _should_ be
using shadow passwords.) To switch to multi-user mode, run

   init 3

or reboot. (If you normally come up with a X running and some sort of graphic
login, you're probably at runlevel 5 rather than 3. The runlevel numbers are
pretty arbitrary -- they really just tell init to run scripts from 
/etc/rc.d/rc?.d/,
where ? is your intended runlevel.)

Bruce Bales wrote:
> 
> Many thanks, Jon.  It wasn't as easy as I thought when I read your message, 
> but I'm up
> again.
> bruce
> 
> Jonathan Hall wrote:
> 
> > Boot from a rescue disk (as though you were going to do a fresh install, for
> > instance), mount the hard disk, edit /etc/passwd, remove the root password.
> >
> > Then reboot again normally, log in as root (it shouldn't even ask you for a
> > password), then run 'passwd' to set your password agian.
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 07:21:30PM -0500, Bruce Bales wrote:
> > > When I got back from vacation, my root password no longer works.  Maybe I 
> > > just forgot
> > > it.  Is there any way, short of reloading Mandrake 7.1, to retrieve or 
> > > change the
> > > root password.
> > >
> > > Stupid Bruce

-- 
/*
 *  Tom Hull * thull@xxxxxxxxxxx * http://www.ocston.org/~thull/
 */

-- This is the linux-help@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
visit http://tmp2.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi