Uh oh, forgot root password

[Joe]

Yep. Forgot the root password to cave. =(.

Does anyone know any way I can get it back? I have physical access to the box, so using a startup CD is no problem at all.

[Blaze]

Wiping Drive - 27% complete...

[Newby]

Eh, start the box with the boot CD, get to a shell, mount your drive, and uh, /etc/passwd / /etc/shadow <-- play with those files.

Otherwise, dunno.

[Eric]

IIRC, can't you just setpwd in single-user mode?

[Newby]

IIRC, can't you just setpwd in single-user mode?

passwd <username> works too, I think. But you have to be root, so eh

[Quik]

Did you have the insite to give yourself sudo priviledges?

[mynameistmp]

When you get to your LILO prompt:

LILO: linux init=/bin/bash

Instead of starting /sbin/init and proceeding with the usual /etc/rc.d/* procedure the kernel will just give you a shell. Not of much use to you, the hdd is mounted read only since it never had a chance to get checked and remounted read/write.

# mount -o remount,rw /

Now you can use passwd to change your password. Don't reboot yet. Since init isn't running there is no process in place for safely taking the system down. remount the root filesystem again.

# mount -o remount,ro /

Reboot.

Btw, this works on any linux system running LILO as a boot manager, so if ever you have console access to someone's box...

[Quik]

Ahh, so this is what you were talking about. So many neat tricks :p

[mfqr]

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

[Joe]

When you get to your LILO prompt:

I don't use LILO. =(

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

...................

@Quik: I have sudo privlidges. I guess why it didn't work is because I was doing su instead.

EDIT -
joe@dave:~ $ sudo passwd root
Password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

[mfqr]

When you get to your LILO prompt:

I don't use LILO. =(

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

...................

@Quik: I have sudo privlidges. I guess why it didn't work is because I was doing su instead.

EDIT -
joe@dave:~ $ sudo passwd root
Password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

You are no fun  .

[Quik]

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

Don't say that, ever agian. You sound like c0n.

[Krazed]

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

Don't say that, ever agian. You sound like c0n.

*cough*... Anyway, That's a neat trick tmp.

[Quik]

a more fun way would be to backup all ur stuff and rm -rf /*.

Don't say that, ever agian. You sound like c0n.

*cough*... Anyway, That's a neat trick tmp.

Yeah, I hint oh-so-subtle. Oh, and nice bump for what a pointless post. -1

[Krazed]

It was only 10 days! I don't wanna hear it.

[zorm]

Its also rather easy if you plan to use a liveCD. Just boot with it and then mount your hd. After that chroot into it and use passwd and tada.