[NTLUG:Discuss] resetting root password (was: locked account)

Robert Citek rwcitek at alum.calberkeley.org
Wed Jun 29 07:58:09 CDT 2005


On Jun 27, 2005, at 10:26 AM, brad angelcyk wrote:
> I had a box (Redhat 7.1) a few years ago that I couldn't remember the
> root password, so I threw a brute force attack at it.  It never locked
> me out from this.  But then I put the drive in another box and cleared
> the password from /etc/shadow.

Since you mention clearing /etc/shadow, I was curious to know how  
else could one reset a mangled or forgotten root password?

Some thoughts:

  - reboot into single user mode.  boot: linux 1
  - reboot, bypassing init.  boot: linux init=/bin/bash
  - setup sudo, although I dunno if rh71 had sudo.

Any other ideas?

Regards,
- Robert
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