Re: Re: Forgotten root passwd

On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 09:56:08AM -0400, [email protected] wrote:
> Hey, Phil.
> 
> > I've managed to forget my root password as the unit has sat working for
> > so long without any issues.  I have a CF card with the Mandrake install
> > image and a hard disk that has Mandrake 9 installed on it.
> >
> > Can you use the CF image to boot into a recover mode to change/delete
> > the root password ? If so how?  And if not any other ideas ?
> 
>    Hmm.  Well, there's a couple of things you could do.
> 
>    1) If you're not running shadow passwords, and thus /etc/passwd
> contains all of the password salts, you could copy that file and use
> another machine to crack the root password of your OpenBrick
>    2) You could boot a Linux distro via the USB or IDE interface and mount
> the filesystem on the CF card, chroot into it, and change the root
> password
>    3) You could reload Linux onto your CF card
>    4) You could do something really ugly, like find out the
> vulnerabilities for your particular version of Mandrake on your
> OpenBrick and see if you're running a vulnerable service, break into
> it, and get root permissions through priviliage escallation.  [Not a
> guaranteed solution, mostly an excercise for enjoyment rather than
> elegance.]
> 

Hope your boot loader allows passing parameter to the kernel.
Pass init=/bin/bash, then remount / read-write, use passwd command
to set new root password, remount / read-only, sync,  power-cycle.

details depend on the boot loader and bootstraping process.
I do not know Mandrake.

brojek.