Disabled the only superuser account ROOT

[Millicent Howze-Simmons]

I manage to disable my root account on a HP-UX 11.11 that was converted to be trusted. The problem is root is the only account as the superuser. Do I need to re-install the operating system ? Or is there another way I can restore the root's password.

[DCE]

you should be able to directly log on from the system console.

If that does not work - you should be able to boot into single user mode and log on.

Failing that, boot off of the install recovery cd, and go into recovery mode - which will allow you to recover root

[John Guster]

if you have session as root login, you can /usr/lbin/modprpw -k root to enable the root account followed by changing the password of root; if you don't have any session logged on as root, reboot the system, interrupt the autoboot to boot to the single user mode, then do enable root account. Cheers.

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi,

Do you have access to the console? Login and enable the root user.

# /usr/lbin/modprpw -k root

Robert-Jan

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

First, simply try to login as root on the console; that will generally succeed. If that approach fails then do this:

Power off the server. You may literally have to pull the power cord(s). Next, power on the box and watch the console for the Press to interrupt normal boot. Press . At the firmware monitor, enter "BOOT PRI". Then when prompted "Interact with ISL/IPL?", enter "Y" and when the ISL/IPL prompt appears, enter "hpux -is". This will bring the box up in single user mode with root logged in on the console. You can then use the utilities in /sbin to fix your problem. Note only / will be mounted at this point so if you need to use utilities like modprpw which are located in /usr/lbin then you will first need to mount /usr which, in turn, will probably require an fsck before mounting.

[Walt Watson]

After booting to single user mode as described, you may need to do the following if passwd root does not let you change the PW.

Steps:

1. uncorrupt dev as needed, e.g.:

fsck -F vxfs /dev/vg00/rlvol{# corrupted}


2. Mount
/var
/usr
/tmp

3. unlock root

/usr/lbin/getprpw -m lockout, culogin root

provide HP with code to make sure its OK:
0001000 culog = 17

4. unlock PW change:

/usr/lbin/modprpw -k root

5. edit password out of file:

vi /tcb/files/auth/r/root

on line with u_pwd, remove encrypted PW up to the colon; line becomes
u_pwd=:/

6. reset PW:
passwd root

[Millicent Howze-Simmons]

A. Clay. I had to do just that. I had to literaaly pwerdown and reboot. Your guidance was on target. I was ablt to reset the the password.

Everyone else.. your info was valuable too because of my novice experience I was able to cleect some good troubleshooting notes.

THANKS! :)