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Date:      Sun, 04 Aug 2002 21:30:33 -0700
From:      Desmond Lee <desmond.lee@shaw.ca>
To:        Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   RE: root unkown?
Message-ID:  <CMEMLGKEKMLLFOICILNMCEGACBAA.desmond.lee@shaw.ca>
In-Reply-To: <20020805041023.GM83171@wantadilla.lemis.com>

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Sweet... it worked.... now i can log in as root

thanks greg :)

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Greg 'groggy'
Lehey
Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2002 9:10 PM
To: Desmond Lee
Cc: FreeBSD Questions
Subject: Re: root unkown?


On Sunday,  4 August 2002 at 21:06:14 -0700, Desmond Lee wrote:
> On  Sunday, August 04, 2002 8:47 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> On Sunday,  4 August 2002 at 20:42:36 -0700, Desmond Lee wrote:
>>> Hi there
>>>
>>> I can't log into my machine because i hosed the /etc/group and the
>>> /etc/master.passwd files while doing an upgrade.
>>>
>>> Anywho, i'm looking at the freebsd faq , 10.14. I have forgotten the
root
>>> password! What do I do?, to try and change the root password. But when i
>> do
>>> 'passwd root' i get a message like 'passwd: Unkown user root".
>>
>> Right, that's what you do when you've lost the password.  If you've
>> lost the user, you'll have to restore it.  You should be able to do it
>> like this:
>>
>> 1.  Boot into single user mode.
>> 2.  Mount the live file system CD-ROM.
>> 3.  Copy the files /etc/group and /etc/master.passwd to their correct
>>     place.
>> 4.  Run:
>>
>>     # pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd
>>
>> This will give you a root user with no password.  You should obviously
>> fix that as soon as possible.  If you don't have the live file system,
>> they're on the installation ISO as well, but that's more work.
>
> What's the live file system?

The second CD-ROM of the four CD set.

> If i don't have it, can you tell me how i can get my hands on it?

Order the set :-)  Or find a workaround.

> The old /etc/group and /etc/master.passwd are in the /var/backups/
> but when i copied them over to /etc/ and rebooted nothing happened?
> Should i then execute pwd_mkdb, or am i just talking nonsense?

No, that's probably what you're missing.  Run the last step, that
should be enough.

> Um... i have a freebsd 4.4 installation cd that came with the book i
> bought, but is that of any use?

No, use the copy you have.  It probably has the correct users and
passwords in it.

Greg
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