[techtalk] Forgotten root password

[Andrew Plumb]

If you can boot of CDROM, the trick that I use to boot off the RedHat
CDROMs (6.x) to rescue my system from various crashes might be of use.

Going from memory, this is approximately what I do.  If I had a CD handy,
I'd verify the procedure, but just in case time is of the essence:

1.  Boot off CDROM

2.  Start the installation process (pressing enter/return)

3.  Go through the motions of starting an installation, i.e. select a
language, but at each step try switching to a shell using Alt+Ctrl+Fx,
where Fx is F2, F3, etc...

4.  When you can switch to a shell, don't do anything else with the
installation procedure.  If it's asking you to set up partitions you've
definitely gone too far; I don't think I even get as far as selecting
between upgrade and new installations.

5.  Load the loop.o module...  /sbin/insmod /etc/modules/loop.o
** I'm not sure about that path to loop.o, but there are only so many
directories to look in, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

6.  mount -t ext2 /dev/hda1 /mnt/part1
...or whichever partition you have your /etc/passwd

7.  Edit the passwd file as you see fit to remove root's password.  

...and that's the skeleton of how I manually bring my system back up when
I'm having major configuration problems; I have an LS120 floppy drive,
which is not very emergency-disk install-friendly, hence the kludge.

G'luck!

Andrew.

--

Andrew Plumb, VE3SLG
mailto://andrew(at)plumb(dot)org
http://www.plumb.org/tekmage/
spk2_0.0.2:  http://www.plumb.org/tekmage/source/spk2/




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