> From: Kevin Ross [mailto:ke...@familyross.net] > Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:45 PM > > > From: Raquel [mailto:raq...@thericehouse.net] > > Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:18 PM > > > > I have an odd problem that's developed, and have spent all afternoon > > trying to figure out what's going on. My web server (running Lenny) > is > > running and serving pages. However, I cannot login to the server via > > SSH or at the console, which means that I cannot apply updates, > change > > configuration, or even get in to figure out what's going on. > > > > Any ideas on what happened or on how to get in? I have access to the > > physical machine. > > > > Boot from a Live or Rescue CD, mount your / partition, edit the /etc/shadow > file, and delete the password for root. Reboot without the CD, and login > with root with no password. Immediately create a password with the "passwd" > command. >
Oh, and just in case you're not familiar with editing the shadow file, when I say to delete the password for root, I don't mean deleting the entire line. I mean removing the encrypted password between the first and second ":", so the two colons are right next to each other. When you're done, the line with "root" in it will look something like this: root::13725:0:99999:7::: Hope this helps! -- Kevin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org