topic Re: Recovering the root user account in Operating System - HP-UX

Recovering the root user account

Andrew Kaplan — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:56:10 GMT

Hi there --

Is it possible for someone to delete the root user account, and if so how can the account be recovered? The system in question is HP-UX 11.11. Thanks.

Re: Recovering the root user account

Kevin Wright — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:01:25 GMT

well, sure. recover with a useradd, restore /etc/passwd;/etc/shadow from backup.

Re: Recovering the root user account

Luis Cardenas Perez — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:44:17 GMT

Hi,

You need to be able to start on single user mode. (You would need a console to do that)

When "10 second to start..." message display abort startup and start manually, then select "interact ..".

execute:
hpux -is

on this mode you can change root password with
passwd command.

Re: Recovering the root user account

Mridul Shrivastava — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:45:16 GMT

I understand if another user have superuser privileges then root can be deleted.
If it is the case then you have to restore the old passwd file.

Re: Recovering the root user account

Shrikant Lavhate — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:32:53 GMT

Hi Andrew,

If account is deleted then you can recover it by restoring /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow from backup but if account is locked by some reason or if there is any password issue with account then booting system in single user mode and resetting password is best choice.

-=ShRi=-

Re: Recovering the root user account

Patrick Wallek — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:23:39 GMT

If you delete the root account, I'm not sure you really have much hope of doing anything.

If you are not logged in, you certainly will not be able to log in. I am not sure the system would boot into single-user mode if root doesn't exist.

If the root user is deleted, you may be forced to recover your system from an Ignite/UX make_tape_recovery or make_net_recovery backup.

Re: Recovering the root user account

whiteknight — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:30:54 GMT

Andrew,

You need to boot up

1) single user mode first (hpux -is)

2) cp /usr/newconfig/etc/passwd /etc/passwd

3) init 3

At least you can boot up into multiuser mode and after that restore original password to the system

WK