lrnobs said: > Booted to single user mode. > Logged in as regular user, then
If your running LILO you can bypass authentication and get a root shell with: linux init=/bin/bash (pass that as options to lilo) if your using GRUB the setup will probably be different I've only had very very brief exposure to grub so can't say for sure. once booted you'll need to remount the root filesystem read-write: mount / -o remount,rw then I would edit /etc/shadow and remove the password from the root account. also check /etc/securetty since the system reported an error reading from it. this file lists the terminals that root can directly log in to. in the end the root entry in /etc/shadow will look something like: root::11951:0:99999:7::: also copy /etc/shadow to /etc/shadow- just to be sure. I reccomend backing up these files before changing them. then remount the partition read-only again: mount / -o remount,ro and reboot.(most likely you'll have to hard reboot) next time you login, root should have no password, upon logging in immediately set a new password. another way is to boot to a cdrom and mount the filesystem and do the same thing. I've used these methods to reset dozens of root passwords over the years. works good on solaris too if your text editor of choice is not on the root filesystem(perhaps you have a /usr on another filesystem where your editor resides), you'll have to mount that(read-only is fine) as well before editing. things may get more complicated if your using software raid and/or LVM, but most people don't use that so I won't cover it. if this is a server and your paranoid about security, when rebooting the system for the first time(during which, root has no password), unplug the system from any network connections before bringing it up. after setting the root password, you can plug it back in again. nate -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
