root account disabled

[johnson]

hi, we have a hpux9000 box running 0S 10.20. It seems several user accounts (including root!) have been locked as part of some automatic auditing/security feature set by our previous system administrator.

It automatically locks inactive accounts after a certain period. Unfortunately this included the root account. So now I cannot log on to the machine as root to reactivate the root account in addition to other user's acounts.

How can I work around this.? I am still trying to find a user who can login to the machine.

Thanks

[Jitendra_1]

First you hope you have a active user with sudo root access to get out of this situation.
Second you might boot in single user mode and fix the /etc/passwd file . However to get in single user mode you dont have much choice but to get the system in idle state and power off / on.

[Rodney Hills]

If you have a UPS running Service Guard, then you can unplug the battery from the wall, and the system will run "shutdown" after a configured timeout.

Then boot up the system in single user mode and you should be able to sign on as root (no password required) and make any necessary alterations.

[Andy Monks]

normally you can login as root on the console regardless.

After that, run 'sam' and change the security policy if you require.

[Wodisch · Accepted solution]

Hello Wayn,

what Andy says is, log in on the console terminal in
TEXT mode, not X-Windows!
HTH,
Wodisch

[Michael Lee_4]

1.boot to level 1
2.mount /var, /usr
3.vi /tcb/files/auth/r/root
4.init 3

also you may try isl>hpux -is