From owner-freebsd-hackers  Mon Jan 27 18:42:30 1997
Return-Path: <owner-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA10104
          for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 18:42:30 -0800 (PST)
Received: from w2xo.pgh.pa.us (w2xo.pgh.pa.us [206.210.70.5])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA10099
          for <hackers@freebsd.org>; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 18:42:27 -0800 (PST)
Received: from w2xo.pgh.pa.us (localhost [127.0.0.1])
          by w2xo.pgh.pa.us (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP
	  id VAA22721; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 21:42:41 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <32ED67A1.446B9B3D@w2xo.pgh.pa.us>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 21:42:41 -0500
From: Jim Durham <durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us>
Organization: Dis-
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1.6-RELEASE i386)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "A. Radovanovic" <radova@risc6.unisa.ac.za>
CC: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Help - can't login
References: <9701261744.AA27426@risc6.unisa.ac.za>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

A. Radovanovic wrote:
> 
> My freebsd ran out of disk space in /. Unfortunately I rebooted the
> system and now I can't get in - no username or password are accepted.
> If I boot in a single user mode, the file system is mounted as a read
> only and I can't do anything with the passwd file.
> 
> Is there any way to get in and repair the damage?
> 
Wow..finally a question I can answer! I too have done this deed...

You need to mount your root partion with "/". This will make the
file system read/write. As in, "mount /dev/wd0a / " .

regards,
Jim Durham