recover root password?

Mizzery

Member

​

Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Jan 29, 2004

• #1

I came home today to find my computer off. No problem, right?

I go to log in as root and the password didn't work

I vaugely remember one night changing it after a few drinks, but don't know what I set it too.

Any hope?

I konw you're not supposed to use root as your main loging, but i do.

Help please.

Thanks,

Chris

 

fiji

Member

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Joined

Jul 14, 2002

Location

berlin

• Jan 29, 2004

• #2

try using a liveCD and chrooting, and changing the password

 

OP

Mizzery

Member

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Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Jan 30, 2004

• Thread Starter
• #3

by live cd, can i just use disk one of my iso install set?

 

Arkaine23

Captain Random Senior Evil

​

Joined

Nov 8, 2001

• Jan 30, 2004

• #4

Use a distro that can run off a CD without installing to a hard drive, like Knoppix.

basically, boot from CD

Open a terminal and become root

mount your root partition

chroot into your root partition

then run- passwd root

 

OP

Mizzery

Member

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Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Jan 30, 2004

• Thread Starter
• #5

I'm not sure if i'm doing this right as i'm not familiar with the chroot command, but i'm using it as follows:

su
cd /dev
chroot hda2

then i get as the output:

bash: /dev/null: Permission denied - this shows 5 times

same happens if i got into hda and chroot /

 

Arkaine23

Captain Random Senior Evil

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Joined

Nov 8, 2001

• Jan 30, 2004

• #6

chroot /mnt/hda2 /bin/bash

Assuming /dev/hda2 is mounted to /mnt/hda2....

 

OP

Mizzery

Member

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Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Jan 30, 2004

• Thread Starter
• #7

I'm starting to think its not the password. When i log in with the password i changed it to, it says authentication failed. When i put in a different password, it says incorrect username / password. Whats the authentication?

 

ookabooka

Member

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Joined

Sep 22, 2002

Location

root@ localhost.localdomain

• Jan 30, 2004

• #8

hmm, try creating a new user and add it to group "root" (can u do that?) perhaps your /etc/shadow got corrupted. I would say blow the /etc/shadow file and start over and recreate all your users. . . but im sure that would be really really bad. . .

 

OP

Mizzery

Member

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Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Jan 31, 2004

• Thread Starter
• #9

I do remember going into some settings about shadow, but memorys from that night are vague. I don't mind killing all my users and rebuildin that if i have to. What file to i have to delete to do this?

 

PachManP

Member

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Joined

Jul 14, 2003

Location

Third sphere from Sol

• Feb 5, 2004

• #10

I know Mizz's gone beyond the whole needing get back into root but here's a way to do it for anyone looking for how:

http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/lnag_basics.html#forgot_root_passwd

 

fiji

Member

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Joined

Jul 14, 2002

Location

berlin

• Feb 5, 2004

• #11

Mizzery said:

I'm not sure if i'm doing this right as i'm not familiar with the chroot command, but i'm using it as follows:

su
cd /dev
chroot hda2

then i get as the output:

bash: /dev/null: Permission denied - this shows 5 times

same happens if i got into hda and chroot /

Click to expand...

when in a live cd, root terminal type

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
chroot /mnt/hda1 /bin/bash
source /etc/profile
passwd
*put in password*
exit
cd /
umount /mnt/hda1
exit


hopefully that will work
(that is if /dev/hda1 is your root partition, if it isnt adjust it accordingly)

 

N

new_novice

Member

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Joined

May 1, 2002

Location

san jose, CA

• Feb 5, 2004

• #12

or boot from live CD, mount your drive, cd to /etc, vi passwd and shadow, delete just the passwords section. reboot, login without password.

 

OP

Mizzery

Member

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Joined

Jun 9, 2002

Location

Troy, NY

• Feb 15, 2004

• Thread Starter
• #13

I've found out which line from my passwd and shadow file. How do i mount my hda2 (root) partition with write permissions from within overcloxix?