<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Max Brooks <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:max@legatio.com">max@legatio.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">Jim Dickenson wrote:<br>
> What I have done in the past to set the password for root is to boot<br>
> in rescue mode and edit /etc/shadow setting the password to some know<br>
> value from another system.<br>
> --<br>
> Jim Dickenson<br>
> mailto:<a href="mailto:dickenson@cfmc.com">dickenson@cfmc.com</a><br>
><br>
> CfMC<br>
> <a href="http://www.cfmc.com/" target="_blank">http://www.cfmc.com/</a><br>
><br>
</div>I personally prefer to chroot into the / partition and run passwd.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br>Yep, thats pretty much the best way, and more or less one of the only methods that is going to work regardless of Linux distribution, or other UNIX variant.<br><br>Many distros now, like most of the UNIXs actually still require your root password when booting single user mode - as they should. Gaining root access to a system even with physical access to the machine *should* be more difficult than simply picking a different grub boot option. I realize that is not the case across all distros, but IMO it should be.<br>
<br>For distros that do require a root password when booting single user mode, your only real options have already been mentioned here...<br><br>1) boot from a CD, mount your partitions then:<br> a) manually edit /etc/shadow (Linux only) and change the field containing the encrypted password with another encrypted password that you know what the uncrypted version is<br>
b) chroot into your mounted partitions and then run passwd as normal (this should be work almost all UNIXs)<br><br>(b) is the more generic and preferred method IMO - it should work just about everywhere... unless you have total disk encryption or encrypted filesystems and are unable to mount the partitions... in which case... best of luck to you.<br>
<br>--<br>Matt Watson<br>