[nmglug] dude, wheres my password?

[ccosse]

hi-
another variation is to use knoppix, as below, and if you have
some way to cut/paste the root entry from /etc/shadow on
another system to the /etc/shadow on the sys w/lost passwd,
then it's as simple as that. I did it 2 wks ago and worked fine.
CC

js at jasonschaefer.com wrote:

>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
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>nmglug mailing list
>>nmglug at nmglug.org
>>http://www.nmglug.org/mailman/listinfo/nmglug
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>
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