FORGOT ROOT PASSWORD

[MarkW_1]

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

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

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

[Kofi ARTHIABAH]

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

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

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

[harry d brown jr]

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

live free or die
harry

[Sanjay_6]

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

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,

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

Goodluck,
-USA..

[Mike Hassell]

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

[G. Vrijhoeven]

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

[Craig Rants]

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

[Darrell Allen]

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

[Nick Tarmey]

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!

[Santosh Nair_1]

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