Trusted sytem : reset root password

[j773303]

#passwd root
Changing password for root
Old password:


Please see the above message, if reset root password, it will ask enther old password in Trusted sytem. Is it anyway do not need old password, just enter new password for reset root passwd ? Thanks.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

No, you must have the old root password to change the password. Try to imagine the security hole if this were not the case. Now, what you can do is reboot the machine and bring it up in single user mode. You do this by interrupting the normal boot, enter "boot pri" and the when prompted by "Interact with ISL?" Respond "Y" and then enter "hpux -is". The machine will come up in single user mode at the console and already logged is as root. You can then change the password without being prompted for the old password.

[Rajeev Shukla · Accepted solution]

In a trusted system it will always ask for old password before you reset the password for root or any other user tries to reset his own password.
However if you have forgotten the old password you can edit the protected password files and remove the old password entry and then try resetting..this time it wont prompt for old password.
For root edit the file
/tcb/files/auth/r/root and modify the entry :u_pwd=kezC0pbGC/zlg:\ to look like
:u_pwd=:\

Cheers
Rajeev

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi.

Just a reminder that pre-trusted systems only kept the first 8 characters of the password, so trying to change a password that was set pretrusted that was more than 8 characters long you must only type in the first 8 characters.