Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 20:20:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Jesse Rock <jesse@accretive-networks.net> To: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> Cc: Doug Reynolds <mav@wastegate.net>, "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: emergency password problem Message-ID: <20020419201726.E10509-100000@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10204182229360.19338-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu>
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I ended up mounting the disk with another installation and editing /etc/ttys. Thank you for all your help. ______________________________________________________________________________ Jesse J. Rock Accretive Technology Group Network Operations www.accretive-networks.net Seattle,Washington jesse@accretive-networks.net "Eschew Obfuscation" On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Annelise Anderson wrote: > On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Doug Reynolds wrote: > > > On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 00:22:16 -0700 (PDT), Annelise Anderson wrote: > > > > >But....you could pop another drive in there, put even a minimal > > >FreeBSD installation on it, and then mount the partitions on > > >the existing drives, and fix /etc/master.passwd. The problem is > > >getting a password database; one way to do it would be to edit it, > > >(the version on the old installation), deleting the root password entry; > > >(but not the root account); copy it to the new /etc (after having backed > > >up the master.passwd on the new installation), and use vipw on the new > > >installation to get the password database rebuilt (with all the same > > >users but no password for root), copy all the relevant files over the > > >ones on the old installation....and reboot the old installation. > > > > > >Think about those steps--I haven't actualy done this. > > > > I _think_ that could be possible by using the fixit floppy too couldn't > > it? > > Yes, once you get the hard drive partition mounted. I think you > would do it using vipw -d /path/to/hardrive/etc > > >From man vipw: > > When run without options, vipw will work with the password files in /etc. > The -d option may be used to specify an alternative directory to work > with. > > pwd_mkdb has the same option (surprise!) > > I find the fixit floppy/cd harder to work with than another installation > of FreeBSD. A picobsd floppy could also be used, although you might in > that case have to call vipw from the hard drive, wherever it's located > after you mount the file systems. > > What I learned from this is that a machine that isn't physically > secure isn't secure even if you require a password at the console. Not > that that's really news, though. > > Annelise > -- > Annelise Anderson > Author of: FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your PC > Available from: BSDmall.com and amazon.com > Book Website: http://www.bittreepress.com/FreeBSD/introbook/ > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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