ROOT PASSWORD GONE!?!

[Rebecca Harding]

Hello all, any help on this would surely be great!

Running hpux 10.20 on 9000/k210. Suddenly my root password just doesn't work. Obviously I can't su too it either.I have no other users with su rights.

From reading many other posts, should I assume at this point the only way to recover is go to the console/hardware (which I will not be able to login into without root), hard-reboot and interrupt the boot process so I can reset password. Let the system then come up, reboot again, so I go back into multiuser and all should be right again?

FYI: I am not running as trusted system

[Rajeev Shukla]

Hi Rebecca,
You really have only 2 options at this stage,
1. See ig you have set rlogin through any other systems by looking at the /etc/hosts.equiv and ~root/.rhosts, if you have any systems listed in that then you can rlogin to this system from them as root and change the password.
2. Boot the system in single user mode by intrupting the boot sequence and change the password.

Also see if you have any old sessions logged in as root in this system, if yes change the password from there.

Yes last thing, which is quite stupid as many people wouldn't allow that. See if have permission to edit the password file /etc/passwd if yes, delete the password entry for root in the password file and save the file, which will allow you to login as root without password and then you can change the password.

Cheers
Rajeev

[Rebecca Harding]

Looked for etc/host.equiv; doesn't exist.

Guess at this point I'll have to get in the car and go reboot. Although, I'll have to just turn the key, because I won't be able to login into the console either. It's been a long, long time since I've booted into single-user. Hopefully I'll remember.
I've never had to change the password like this before, so assumably I will be prompted at somepoint to make that change when booting into single-user?

Is there anyway to tell (when this is all over) what exactly happened?? I left the office about 1pm on Friday and all was right with the world then.

[Rajeev Shukla]

Hi Rebecca,
Yes i sorry as you dont have other option than rebooting the system.
Before you turn off the key, just see you have restricted sam configured for any users and they have reboot options. Which will safely bring the system down.
Also when the systems comes up next time, watch when you see the message on console
"to stop the normal boot sequence please any key now" message might not is exactly the same, but it asks you for an intrupt, when you do so the boot will stop and then you can type
bo
then it asks if you want to interact with ISL you say "y"
then you get the ISL prompt
ISL>
type
ISL>hpux -is
this will boot the system in single user mode and you will get a # prompt
type /sbin/passwd to change the password at this moment.
Once done you can reboot the system and let it boot in normal way.

[Geoff Wild]

Hard boot - at ISL - hpux -is

Best way to do it.

Rgds...Geoff

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Rebecca,

If you are running any system management software like Tivoli, OVO etc., with this system as the client you will be able to reset the passwords from there. Otherwise, as said before, rebooting the system to single-user mode and changing the password is only the way.

To find what might have happened can be a difficult task. Since the system is not trusted, there isn't much you can do to get that information other than looking at root's history and analyzing the last logins|su attempts since last time you saw it working.

-Sri