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Re: root password does not work after a crash

 
Carol Anne Kumer
Occasional Visitor

root password does not work after a crash

I have a system running hpux 11.11.  It recently crashed.  I got it back up, but the root password does not work, neither do any rlogins from trusted systems work.

 

I am unable to boot in single user mode because it requests a password and the password does not work.

 

I need to get root access to the system and am at a loss why it does not work.

 

I compared the root entry in /etc/passwd to the root entry in another system.  they are identical yet the password works on the one system, but not the recently crashed one.  Any ideas?

 

 

2 REPLIES 2
Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor

Re: root password does not work after a crash

Does the root password contain one of the well-known problem characters: # or @?

 

With certain configuration settings, this problem can be avoided when the system is running normally... but when booting to single-user mode, such configuration settings may not have been loaded yet. That would be a good reason to avoid those characters in the root password, especially if the entry to single-user mode has been password-protected.

 

On HP-UX 11.11, wasn't trusted system mode a requirement for password-protecting the entry to single user mode?

(Anyway, if you can access the system, does the /tcb directory exist? Does the /tcb/files/auth/system/default file exist? If so, the system is in trusted system mode.)

 

In trusted system mode, the actual hashed root password is not stored in /etc/passwd, but in /tcb/files/auth/r/root: the password field in /etc/passwd is a place-holder only.

 

You may have to boot the system to recovery mode using a 11.11 core installation media, and then use a recovery shell to remove the current root password (or replace it with a hash of a known password). The "Recovery Methods" chapter in the Ignite-UX Administration Guide has instructions for using the recovery shell.

MK
Dennis Handly
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: root password does not work after a crash

>neither do any rlogins from trusted systems work.

 

Did this work before?  I.e. has the appropriate .rhosts entries been set up?

And you are using the default security and not trusted mode or SMSE (probably only 11.23)?

 

>In trusted system mode, the actual hashed root password is not stored in /etc/passwd, ... the password field in /etc/passwd is a place-holder only.

 

But that place-holder (* or x?) should be obvious as not a password?