[clug-talk] Reset root password SuSE 9.2

[Shawn]

you could use a small live CD (knoppix or otherwise, then chroot to your local 
drive, and run passwd...

The minimal Gentoo install CD is only a couple hundred meg - not quite as bad 
as doing a full sized CD...  it even just boots to a command prompt, so the 
boot up is pretty quick.  But there are many options for Live CDs, of course.  
this one is just the smallest I could think of of the top of my head.

the commands would be something like:

#mount the local root partition (the physical drive/partition)
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/point 

#mount proc if needed - probably not in this case
mount -t none proc /mnt/point/proc 

#chroot to the mounted drive
chroot /mnt/point /bin/bash

#change password and reboot
passwd
exit
reboot

HTH

Shawn

On Friday 09 September 2005 23:24, Jarrod Major wrote:
> Hey Gang,
>
> I've been beating my head against a wall here for hours. I have a server
> that I haven't yet put into production (it's only been on my local network)
> and I haven't touched it for months. When i went to login, it appears that
> I have forgotten my root and user passwords. Nothing I enter works anyway.
> I usually write these things down, must've slipped my mind this time.
>
> I have the original install media so I did a Google search and the easiest
> way appears to fire in Disc 1 and select Rescue system from the boot menu.
> They talk about editing the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. I have done
> this and when I reboot, I still can't get in as root. Effectively, they
> suggest you clear out the root password so that when you reboot, there is
> no password, you are supposed to just hit enter. When I hit enter at the
> root login prompt I get "Login incorrect".
>
> I tried Tom's Root Boot disc but unfortunately it doesn't support the
> Reiser FS and my / partition (where /etc lives, no d'uh!) is Reiser.
>
> I have a Knoppix disc but I didn't make it and for whatever reason this
> particular system doesn't want to boot from this CD (the SuSE 9.2 disc one
> is also burned and boots fine). I didn't want to do a big ISO download for
> the latest Knoppix, this one isn't that old... 3.4
>
> So I am running out of options here. There was other advice to physically
> remove the drive and install it in a working system and once mounted edit
> the same files. I don't want to resort to this and it almost seems like
> they are getting reset somehow. Is Reiser doing this? Is this a funky SuSE
> thing? I read docs right off the SuSE site regarding the rescue procedure
> so I am confident they are supposed to be right.
>
> This is a basic install, no GUI, just the OS and Apache and a few other
> things.
>
> I'm not having much luck with root passwords these days. First my laptop
> and now this (I haven't tried my user password for root in Kubuntu Neil, I
> will).
>
> Going to bed, gonna try this again tomorrow. TIA!