On 2/19/19 1:31 PM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:
On 2/18/19 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:
The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but
this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for
that install.
Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed?
If you've got another Unix-a-like (e.g. Linux works fine) machine
kicking around with SCSI, it's possible to hack up some shell script
to 'dd' blocks from the AIX machine's drive one by one, looking for
stuff that looks like part of the password file. Then you can save
them, edit them to make the data appear like a normal Unix passwd file
(IBM being IBM, AIX in those days did things a little differently),
and run one of the various password crackers on the result (e.g. JtR).
That process worked for my 7043-140, anyway. I don't think that the
filesystem for AIX that old is directly supported on anything, so you
can't just mount it like I believe you can more modern releases. Of
course if you have install media, then as someone else mentioned I
believe there are ways of resetting it that way which are (probably)
far easier :-)
Thanks. I am all set now. I got a pointer to AIX 4.3.3 iso images and
have been able to do a fresh install on the system. I also have a Model
150 that I need to go through and I think the AIX iso images will work
for that as well.
I haven't touched AIX in decades, so it did kinda hurt trying to wrap my
brain around it again.
alan
cheers
Jules
