Editing Red Hat Password Files

[Calum]

i don't think you hit a sore spot, sleeping dog, and i don't think people are keeping anything from you, just because you are new or anything like that, i think in the current unix climate, there's less keeping secrets than there is in a lot of other systems related circles.

I do think though that a reinstall would be your best option, you could just get the spankinest newest version of whatever distro you want (usually for free, red hat 7.3 is out now for instance) and bob's your uncle, there you go, set your own root password! I'm afraid cryptography is not my strong point so that's what i'd do.

As VoidMain says though, physical access is definitely the key, I saw a thread elsewhere, i'll try and look it up so i can post the url here... The only reasons i can think of that you might be hesitant to reinstall is if you had data on the computer that you didn't want to lose, or if you didn't actually have any linux install media to do a reinstall from... wait and i'll get that url...

here's the first thread i was thinking of, Brion posts a solution that you could employ.

Here's another thread about this topic.

And here's the thread i was thinking of initially, although it doesn't seem to be as informative as the other two on reflection.

Good luck! and let us know how you get on.  

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[hoojchoons]

Well, in the case of servers I would definitely agree with the locked server rooms option also. I was really surprised by the fact that in runlevel one (single user mode) you can change your root password without being prompted for your old one. Anyway, that about answers your question Sleeping Dog. You don't have to manually edit the /etc/passwd or the /etc/shadow files (that would be crazy). You can set up a new root password if and only if you have physical access to that machine you're talking about. Otherwise, just reinstall a newer distro. Hope I've answered everything  

[Sleeping Dog]

I want to thank all of you for your input.  It has been quite helpful.  I do have physical access to this box.  There are files on it that the person who gave it to me wants preserved.  I recently FTP slurped Red Hat 7.3 from a mirror site and would like to upgrade this thing with it and with the new KDE once I have gotten in and saved what needs saving.  My upgrade will proably have to wait until I can put a new CD ROM in it though......the one in it now was used as a cup holder once too often.

Again...thanks to all.

Sleeping Dog

[voidmain]

Why do you think you need to reinstall?   The link hoojchoons posted should show you how to set your root password if you've forgotten it.  Boot into single user mode and type "passwd".

[badkarma]

sorry to drag this old topic up, but we tried this out at work, and when booting with lilo option single, we were prompted for a root password (this was on suse 8, running kernel 2.4.x)

[hoojchoons]

BadKarma you're absolutely right. I've also tried that with SuSE 8.0 Professional and it also prompted for the old root password. Looks like that's not an option anymore for the 2.4.* kernel.