topic how to recover admin password for console. in Operating System - Linux

how to recover admin password for console.

bharani123 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:30:07 GMT

is there is any way for recovering console password for admin.

Thanks in advance...

Re: how to recover admin password for console.

Jeeshan — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:46:06 GMT

reset the console

Re: how to recover admin password for console.

Mike (Sinew) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:27:33 GMT

Reset the server and add "init=/bin/sh" to the boot loader (assuming lilo does not have a "password" option or you know that password). When the kernel has booted, the init is replaced with a shell. Do "mount -o remount,rw /" and change the password of the root user with "passwd". Do "sync" and "mount -o remount,ro /". Reboot the server and login with the new password. Note that there is no way to determine what the password was, since the password is stored using a hash. This procedure just changes the root password to a new one.

Re: how to recover admin password for console.

Steven E. Protter — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:32:55 GMT

Shalom,

No admin user in Unix/Linux. Its called root.

boot the system with power switch into single user mode. Then passwd command.

The procedure for booting into single user mode varies from distribution to distribution.

SEP

Re: how to recover admin password for console.

Mike (Sinew) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:00:29 GMT

Steven, single user mode (either init 1 or S) will still ask the password for the root user (at least on SuSE Linux). I presume it's no different on other distributions. So, to bypass this, the init has to be changed to a shell.

By the way, another method is to boot a rescue system, mount "/" on some directory (like "/mnt"), do a "chroot /mnt", "passwd" to change the root's password, "logout" and "unmount /mnt". After a reboot, the root user can login with the new password.

Re: how to recover admin password for console.

Don Vanco - Linux Ninja — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:44:20 GMT

There kernel is the kernel regardless of distro - get in your bootloader and append "single" or "s" or "S" to the kernel line and you'll boot to single user mode.

AFAIK only SuSE continues the stupidity of requiring the root password in single user mode, but then I'm not one to try the distro flavor of the week. If you have console access to _get_ into single user mode, you've compromised the system. Forcing the root pw is just more of an inconvenience than a real security "feature".

If you want to get real complex you can use one of several utilities to generate a new password hash, then boot with any of several "live" distros, mount /, and re-write /etc/shadow.... Never tried it myself as that's clearly a way to really mess a system that requires a pw in any init level. Obviously it would behoove one to copy the file before making any such edit....