Hi CPKS,
> Independently and in collaboration with Paul Tyson, I have now set up
> or assisted in the setup of ten Linux machines for others (eight of
> whom were converted from M$ (and none of those has complained!)).
Well done! Out of interest, what do they get? Unity!? :-)
> One of my converts (no names, no pack-drill) decided to change his
> password. And then he instantly forgot it.
I normally ask if it was "amnesia" at that point.
> He was the only administrative user on the system. I hadn't set the
> root password. (Luckily, he used his machine only for web access, so
> a reinstall was not too traumatic.)
A re-install isn't necessary AFAICS. Boot from other media, mount the
original filesystem so /etc/shadow is available, replace the crypt(3)ed
digest for root with one for which you know the password.
sudo egrep '^(root|'$USER'):' /etc/shadow
I once used this technique to re-gain access to a Xenix box for a sys.
admin. who'd been delivered it to install. Back then, I asked if he had
a disk sector editor for DOS and a bootable floppy to put it on. After
a bit of hunting he found one, part of Norton I think, and I searched
for typical contents of /etc/passwd (pre-shadow(5)), found a few
possible sectors and edited each, using the GECOS field to ensure the
file remained the same length.
Cheers, Ralph.
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