root account locked out !

[J Armsworth]

What's the procedure for reseting root's password when the account has become disabled ?

Does this involve rebooting the machine in single user mode etc etc or is there a quicker way of doing this using the secure web console or something similar ?

- oh and to make matters worse, it's a Trusted System !!

[Alex Glennie]

cd /tcb/files/auth/r/
vi root

Remove the characters in this field, ie FROM :u_pwd=FjkcRtoBTdXnI:\ TO :u_pwd=:

Save the file and retry the passwd command to change the passwd.

If this does NOT work, then ...
yes reboot the box --- interrupt and boot into single-user mode(From ISL: hpux -is) etc etc ....

[J Armsworth]

Thanks Alex,

but /tcb is owned by root, perms of 551 as well ! - reboot option it is then ?

Any pointers on the procedure for rebooting seeing as i've never had to deal with this situation before, can you expand a little on your etc, etc..... system is hpux 11.0 on a 9000/800.

Oh, we live and learn, or at least in this case the client does !

Thanks in advance.

[Alex Glennie]

single user mode .....

reboot system

Hit Esc key when the following message appears:

Booting from primary path, press any key to override

Boot from primary path and interact with isl At the menu, type:

boot pri isl

Answer "y" to:

interact with ISL ?
Enter boot command At the ISL prompt type:

hpux -is

Tech Knowledge based doc : DFQKBCA00000206 details all the options etc for the various S800 systems......

[J Armsworth]

Thanks for info.

Further to saga though;

Have managed to log into another server ( exactly same type ) on same network as 'root', don't s'pose there's a remote possibility i can do anything from one server to another ? - have tried the usual rlogin but prompts for password again !

Any other options as i really want the reboot to be that last thing i have to try !

Thanks.

[K.Vijayaragavan.]

If you remember the password,
=============================

If root account is blocked the you may not be able to login to CDE and telnet sessions but you can login at the system console if you know the root password.

For logging into the console,
At CDE login screen, select option>command line login> and where you can feed in login and password.

Once you login here, we can run "sam" and goto accounts for users and groups, goto users, highlight root and select action and select reactivate or modify the password.

If you don't remember the password:-
=========

As soon as you switch on the server one message pops on the screen which is similar to "press any key to interrupt the boot process" there you can press any key to enter into ISL and where you can type "hpux -is" to goto single user mode.

just give the command passwd to change the password or run sam and reactivate the account.

If still not working edit the /tcb/auth/files/r as already mentioned here.


-Vijay

[Alex Glennie]

I've yet to confirm this will work but it's worth ago if you have time ...

Go to the console and login as root in the no windows mode.
This will allow you to login and automatically re-enable the account.
At login it will say:
login is disabled but allowed in no windows mode from the console.
This allows you to login. It returns a prompt.
3. Log out.
4. Go to windows mode.
5. Login as root
It should all work fine after completing these steps.

[J Armsworth]

Thanks Alex for the suggestion, but alas there is no console on this system :(

[J Armsworth]

Thanks to all you guys in here for your help as it raised some interesting points for me to try.

Anyway, problem is now solved as the client admitted that they may not of changed the password to the new one they were giving me !. Knowing this and even though the account was disabled from normal access, I was able to access the server thru the Secure Web Console, using the 'old' password ( or correct password in this case ! ), et voila, entry to the system was allowed, issued a passwd command, changed it to a new one for safety, tried a CDE login and bingo -i'm in...pheeewie !

Crisis, averted, account modified to increase 'retries' to a few more than the previously low figure and a slap round the head for the client !!

Thanks once again for your replies as it got me thinking in the right direction.

Cheers.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

Login into the system using any other user id and check the /.rhosts and /etc/hosts.equiv file, you can cat those files. If you don't have these files or there are no servers mentioned in these files you cannot login into the server remotely from other server without supplying a password. Rebooting in single user mode and resetting the password is your only choice.

here are some steps for different system on how you can boot into single user mode,

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=32176a4a0f3edcc3ad/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000058670473

Hope this helps.

Regds