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Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 09:17:17 +0930
From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: Alejandro Galindo <agalindo@fvilla.secyd-dgo.gob.mx>
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: lost password
References: <1.5.4.32.19970818162901.006667f8@fvilla.secyd-dgo.gob.mx>
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In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19970818162901.006667f8@fvilla.secyd-dgo.gob.mx>; from Alejandro Galindo on Mon, Aug 18, 1997 at 04:29:01PM +0000
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On Mon, Aug 18, 1997 at 04:29:01PM +0000, Alejandro Galindo wrote:
>         Hi.
>
>         I was chanched the root password and i lost the new password, but i
> have the encrypted data passwords (twice, the last and the new), how can i
> recover the password (not encrypted) is there any utility for this?. My box
> is a FreeBSD 2.1.5 from Walnut Creek CDROM and the crypt metod is
>         MD5.

You can't, at least not easily.  Reboot your machine.  When the
'Boot:' prompt appears, type in -s.  The system startup will be
interrupted as soon as the device probes have been completed, and you
will be prompted for a shell.  Always choose sh: some other shells,
notably bash, get confused in single user mode. Only the root file
system will be accessible, and it will be mounted read-only.  The
reason for this is that the file system may be damaged and require
repair before you can write to it.

For example,

npx0 on motherboard
npx0: INT 16 interface			(end of the probes (high intensity display))
Enter pathname of shell or RETURN for sh:  (hit RETURN)
erase ^H, kill ^U, intr ^C
# mount -u /				(mount root read/write)
# passwd				(Change your password here)
# ^D					(enter control-D to continue startup)

Greg