How to break the root password

[M.P.Chandrasekar]

hi all,

is there any way i can break the root password in HP-UX? Because no one knows that password.

[singh sanjeev · Accepted solution]

But you can change it single user mode. if do not remember it..

Or if you have equal privilege root account can change the password of root.

[Pete Randall]

As long as the system is untrusted, you can boot into single user mode and you will be automatically logged in as root. Then change the password to something you can remember. If the system is trusted, then the procedure becomes a bit more complex.


Pete

[SoorajCleris]

Nothing other than single usermod...

Explanations above.. If you are not enabled passwd check in single usermod.

Regards,
Sooraj

[madhuchakkaravarthy]

hi

boot in to single user mode

if its non trusted sys

1. passwd root
2.Boot the system in to multi user mode.

if its trusted sys
run fsck before mounting
1. mount /usr
2. /usr/lbin/modprpw -k root
3. /usr/sam/lbin/usermod.sam -F -p "" root
4.passwd root
5.Boot the system in to multi user mode

regards

MC

[madhuchakkaravarthy]

hi

left some other option

#/usr/lbin/tsconvert -r
#/sbin/passwd root

but make a note

This will expire all other accounts password and /usr/lbin/tsconvert needs to be run again.

if it is production server dont perfer this option

regards

MC

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Yes.

You take the file the password in, /etc/passwd or the /etc/shadow or /tcb files and copy them to a temp directory.

Then you run crack on them.

It uses enormous cpu resources, but will eventually crack word based passwords.

If the password is truly random, it won't work.

Boot to single user mode and run the passwd command to reset.

Otherwise you are SOL.

SEP

[Norm Diederich]

Just a reminder, single user mode requires access to the console either directly or one of the various system managemtn interfaces.

Regards,
Norm

[sudheerch]

we can change password in single user mode with the command #passwd


if the server is trusted
go to single user mode remove the password content (don't remove ":"after the password content) of the file #vi /tcb/files/auth/r/root
and restart the server in the single user mode and then change the password using #passwd command

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,
>>is there any way i can break the root password in HP-UX? Because no one knows that password

Are you able to login into the server?
Is there any account who is having sudo to root access ?
Is you server is trusted or un-trusted ?
Is PA-RISC or Itanium ?
For PA-RISC you can reset the root passwd in single user. but for Itanium you need to reboot through DVD then from recovery mode you can change the root passwd.

Suraj