Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 18:55:16 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: One method to recover a lost root password Message-ID: <45FB4A84.90509@u.washington.edu> In-Reply-To: <387c4f3e.1c76814.28ed7ad1.29@madole.net> References: <387c4f3e.1c76814.28ed7ad1.29@madole.net>
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David S. Madole wrote: >> From Derekj Tourneo on Friday, March 16, 2007 4:46 PM >> >> How I recovered a lost root password in FreeBSD >> >> Luckily I did know one user name and it had no password. >> cgadmin >> >> going to the repair mode with CDROM/DVD option off the >> install menu, using the "live" CDROM filesystem gave me a >> root prompt Fixit# >> >> now mounting the hard drive, in my case /dev/ad0s3a >> >> mount /dev/ad0s3a /mnt >> ... >> >> now change permissions, but look at them first, make a note >> so you can put them back to the correct setting later chmod >> 777 /mnt/etc chmod 666 /mnt/etc/master.passwd >> >> reboot >> >> remove the CD and reboot the original system. >> For some reason my older FreeBSD version 4.3 filesystem did >> not like being mounted onto a FreeBSD 6.1 install CD Hence on >> reboot it made me do a manual fsck Then another reboot >> >> Now login as a user, cgadmin in my case >> get a prompt and run >> >> pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd > > You don't need to know another account nor do you need all those other steps. After you edit the /etc/master.passwd file by booting from the fixit CD simply: > > pwd_mkdb -d /mnt/etc master.passwd > > If pwd_mkdb is not on the fixit CD -- I don't remember if it is -- you can run it from your hard drive something like this, depending on what partition it's on: > > /mnt/usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb -d /mnt/etc master.passwd > > Then just reboot and log in as root. > > David I am confused why this topic came up on this list.. -Garrett
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