From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Dec 23 17:03:31 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA26248 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 17:03:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from mhv.net (mgraffam@spice.mhv.net [199.0.0.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA26223 for ; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 17:03:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mgraffam@mhv.net) Received: from localhost (mgraffam@localhost) by mhv.net (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA10741; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 20:03:06 -0500 Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 20:03:04 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Graffam To: grcuerrier cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lost root password In-Reply-To: <199712240043.TAA02258@host.cnwl.igs.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 23 Dec 1997, grcuerrier wrote: > One of my techs entered a new root password, which he has forgotten. Is > there any way a user with "wheel" access can reset the root password > without having to redo the whole server? If you installed the sudo package, yes. If not, you can use the tried and try method of (re)gaining root access: find an exploit :) > Strange question I know. I thought possibly there would be a way upon > power up. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Look through the documentation for the boot loader, and see if you can find something that allows you to give new commands to init on boot up. If so, specify something like /bin/sh, which should give you a root shell at startup (before normal login takes place) then you can just use passwd, and then reboot. Michael Graffam (mgraffam@mhv.net) http://www.mhv.net/~mgraffam - Religion, Philosophy, Computers, etc