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Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:44:00 -0400
From: "David S. Madole" <david@madole.net>
To: 'Derekj Tourneo' <derekj@tourneo.com>, 
	"'freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org'" <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>
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Subject: RE: One method to recover a lost root password
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> From Derekj Tourneo on Friday, March 16, 2007 4:46 PM
>=20
> How I recovered a lost root password in FreeBSD
>=20
> Luckily I did know one user name and it had no password.
> cgadmin=20
>=20
> going to the repair mode with CDROM/DVD option off the=20
> install menu, using the "live" CDROM  filesystem gave me a=20
> root prompt  Fixit#
>=20
> now mounting the hard drive, in my case /dev/ad0s3a
>=20
> =09mount /dev/ad0s3a /mnt
> ...
>=20
> now change permissions, but look at them first, make a note=20
> so you can put them back to the correct setting later chmod =20
> 777 /mnt/etc chmod 666 /mnt/etc/master.passwd
>=20
> reboot
>=20
> remove the CD and reboot the original system. =20
> For some reason my older FreeBSD version 4.3 filesystem did=20
> not like being mounted onto a FreeBSD 6.1 install CD Hence on=20
> reboot it made me do a manual fsck Then another reboot
>=20
> Now login as a user, cgadmin in my case
> get a prompt and run
>=20
> =09pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd

You don't need to know another account nor do you need all those other step=
s. After you edit the /etc/master.passwd file by booting from the fixit CD =
simply:

   pwd_mkdb -d /mnt/etc master.passwd

If pwd_mkdb is not on the fixit CD -- I don't remember if it is -- you can =
run it from your hard drive something like this, depending on what partitio=
n it's on:

   /mnt/usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb -d /mnt/etc master.passwd

Then just reboot and log in as root.

David