[nmglug] dude, wheres my password?
js at jasonschaefer.com
js at jasonschaefer.com
Wed Apr 13 10:35:06 PDT 2005
Joe
Another way to do this is get knoppix or other live distro.
1. boot it up
2. get to a shell
3. type "sudo bash"
4. type "fdisk -l" to see what partitions are available. You want to find the
partition that your OS uses as /
fdisk -l
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 130 1044193+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda2 * 131 3445 26627737+ 83 Linux
In this case /dev/hda2 is / because there are no other options and hda1 is swap.
5. mkdir /mnt/temp
6. mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/temp
7. nano /mnt/temp/etc/passwd (before I start a flamefest, you can use any text
editor (emacs, vi, etc) nano is easy for beginners)
If passwd does not exist you need to refer back to step 4 and try another
/dev/hda? in step 6. if you need to do this, type "umount /mnt/temp" first to
un-mount anything you may have mounted initially.
8. remove the "x" in this line: "root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash" and save (this
bypasses /etc/shadow passwords)
9. reboot into your os
10. login as root, press enter for password (there is no password now)
11. "nano /etc/passwd" put the "x" back, the one you removed in step 8
12. type "passwd" to reset your password.
Hope that helps.
Quoting "joe at highmayhem.com" <joe at highmayhem.com>:
> Hello,
>
> Yeah, I'm that guy. I thought I knew it, I don't remember changing it,
> but I can't log in as root with any password thats in my head. What can
> I do? Can I change it to something new? Can I find out what it is?
>
> What would you do?
>
> Thanks,
> Joe
>
>
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