topic Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD in Operating System - HP-UX

FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

MarkW_1 — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:25:26 GMT

Is there a way to breakin and retrieve the root password. HP L class box. OS 11.0

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

harry d brown jr — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:29:13 GMT

NO.

You have to shutdown and reboot into single user mode and reset the password.

Is this a trusted system or NIS+?

live free or die
harry

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Kofi ARTHIABAH — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:31:39 GMT

Yes - check this thread:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,11866,0x5afbc6af36b7d5118ff10090279cd0f9,00.html

BTW there have been a number of queries such as this and you can find them by using the excellent search facility at the top-left and typing in the relevant keywords

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Sridhar Bhaskarla — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:33:13 GMT

Unless you have another login with 0 uid.

You need to get into single user mode and then change the password. Unfortunately you have to power-off the system.

Or there are some workarounds if you are using monitoring softwares like IT/O where you can push a template script that can be used to change the password.

-Sri

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

harry d brown jr — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:33:39 GMT

I should have said NO to you can't retreive the password, but yes to you can break in :-))

live free or die
harry

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Sanjay_6 — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 19:34:38 GMT

Hi Mark,

You will have to boot the system in single user mode and reset the password,

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=2421d0c20d4e04825f/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000057790847

Hope this helps.

Regds

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Uday_S_Ankolekar — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 20:00:42 GMT

Hi,

As every one mentioned,
You've to recycle the power then go to single user mode to change the root password

Goodluck,
-USA..

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Mike Hassell — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 20:16:08 GMT

Mark,

If you can't power down the system for some reason and still need to obtain the root password you can always use the totally unsupported method of cracking your own password file. Your system must not be in "trusted" mode or use NIS/NIS+.

Login to the system as a normal user:

cp /etc/passwd ~

ftp the file to another UNIX host, install:

http://www.openwall.com/john/

Load up the copied password file and let it run, if your root password isn't that difficult, then you should be set in a matter of hours or even minutes.

I would recommend using the method already described by others, but if this is a production system that can't be rebooted for some time, then I would go ahead and crack it. It will also give you an idea of how secure your systems really are. Hope that helps.

-Mike

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

G. Vrijhoeven — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 20:20:43 GMT

Hi,

If you are able to push an sd kit to the system, its runs as root so you are able to change the root passwd with a kit.

init 1

Hope this will help,

Gideon

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Craig Rants — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 21:58:04 GMT

If this is a trusted system you can zero out the password. Edit /tcb/files/auth/r/root

Delete the hash between = and : in the u_pwd line then type in passwd and you will not be asked for the old password.

Just another idea,
C

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Darrell Allen — Tue, 04 Dec 2001 01:20:23 GMT

Hi Mark,

If you are not superuser you should not be able to edit the tcb files. If you can then you have a serious security problem.

Craig, you must have had a rough weekend ;-)! If Mark was already superuser he could just issue the passwd command. Oops!

Darrell

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Nick Tarmey — Wed, 05 Dec 2001 11:16:02 GMT

There is no way to actually retrieve the password but you can change it by doing the following.
Reboot the server, interupt the boot sequence issue the command "hpux -is" at the ISL> prompt .. the server will start in single user mode without prompting for a passwd, once in type passwd and enter a new password.

Bada Boom Bada Bing!

Re: FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

Santosh Nair_1 — Wed, 05 Dec 2001 11:39:43 GMT

Unfortunately, you have little choice but to reboot the machine and go into single user mode to change the password. Also, if you don't have shutdown.allow set up to allow non-root users to reboot the machine, then you'll probably have to crash the machine. Try to take down as many applications as possible before resorting to this.

-Santosh