root password issue

[Charles McCary]

Group,

here's the scenario:

1) We are able to remsh to the system, so we can get to a root prompt.

2) We want to change the root password, but we don't know the OLD password.

3) HPUX 11.11 trusted system.

Thoughts:

Can we simply?
erase the u_pwd field in /tcb/files/auth/r/root

[Patrick Wallek]

Yes.

To have a null password the line needs to look like:

:u_pwd=:\

[Charles McCary]

Patrick,

thanks...no need to go to single user mode right?

[Vivek Bhatia]

Hi Charles,

Yes you can do that by editing the file.

/tcb/files/auth/r/root

Remove the encrypted content from mentioned between.

:u_pwd=:\

And no need to go to single user mode.

Regards
Vivek

[Vivek Bhatia]

For Example , if you have a entry like this.

:u_pwd=XXXXX:\

Then Remove XXXXX (encrypted content from the file) and that will allow you to login with empty password.

Vivek

[OldSchool]

"Patrick,

thanks...no need to go to single user mode right?"

how do you propose to login as root to make the change then?

[Charles McCary]

See #1 in original question...we have root access, just not the old password. thanks.

[Charles McCary]

I guess my main concern is doing this "on the fly" in mulit-user mode. I don't want something to get corrupted.

[OldSchool]

ah....missed that bit...yes, you can do it in multiuser. once you "unset" it as described above, simply log in and set it to whatever new value is desired.

[Robert-Jan Goossens_1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Charles,

Actually if you have root access (remsh) you can do this on the fly.

# vi /tcb/files/auth/r/root

Remove the password hashed field and save.

# passwd root

Regards,
Robert-Jan