Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:37:43 -0400 From: Walt Elam <wrelam@gmail.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Root password not working on console Message-ID: <CAConN%2BmaBrGrHPC3ohxkaDztUQms6j=VOgpu0viCTDT%2BXKcy6A@mail.gmail.com>
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I recently *accidentally* removed myself from the wheel group, so I was no longer able to use su to root. To fix it, I hooked up a monitor and keyboard to my FreeBSD 8.2 box so I could login as root, but it kept rejecting my password. I restarted the machine in single-user mode, did the following: mount -u / mount -a passwd exit So it booted back in to multi-user mode. Once again, I tried to login as root, but got the same "Login incorrect" message. Puzzled, I repeated the previous steps using the password "pass" this time. However, I went ahead and added my user account to the wheel group while in single-user mode. Once in multi-user mode again, I still got "Login incorrect" (specifically, pam_acct_mgmt(): authentication error) when logging in as root. I SSH'd to the machine as my regular user, typed su, and entered "pass" which worked just fine. So, I have absolutely no clue why I am unable to login to my machine, on the console, as root with "pass", but it works when using su from a regular user account. I tried searching around but almost all of the hits are about resetting the root password in single-user mode. Does any one know what I'm doing incorrectly? Thanks for any help in advance, -Walt
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