I upgraded the security level of my mandrake 8.2 box from the lowest to the intermediate (3) level. Now I don't have access to any user, including root, because my passwords are all expired. I couldn't su to root and couldn't shutdown the box (ctr+alt+del didn't respond). I was stuck with the graphical login and had to press the reset button :-( , messing the filesystem... I googled the internet to find out how to boot as a single user and change the root password. Here is what I did. lilo> linux runlevel 1 or lilo> linux single didn't help. The file system is messed (du to hard reset) and I am faced with the alternative of either supplying the root password (which I don't have) for maintenance or press ctr+D to do a normal start, which brings me back to the stallemate above... (btw, is there any difference between: linux runlevel 1 , linux init 1 and linux single ?) I then tried: lilo> linux init=/bin/sh rw which gave me an init prompt. I typed su and without asking for a password, I got the root prompt: [root@(none) / ]# I located the passwd command in the filesystem and tried it: # ./passwd root ./passwd: permission denied. I have the same result at the init or root prompt. I then tried to modify the /etc/passwd file to erase the root pass (as I read I could do when I googled the web). vi didn't work but I found a vim-minimum in the filesystem and used it to vi /etc/passwd but the file was read only and any attempt to write it failed. Another note that might be important: the /usr filesystem was not mounted and I didn't mount it because the filesystem got corrupted and trying to mount it would have brought plenty of error messages and I wouldn't have known what to do). So: I lost my root password (not that I forgot it but it unexpectedly got expired!) I could login and su to root as a single user but still could do anything about it! Beside getting me back my user and root password, I'd like to know if it is possible to switch back to a lower security level... I cannot manage my box at a higher level.... Thanks, Anguo
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