Re: A simple problem

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu>]

On Sat, May 20, 2000 at 08:14:46PM -0300, Dayse Regina Pereira <dayseregina@uol.com.br> was heard to say:
> I'm just start with debian and i have a problem wich i don't know who i should contact so i decided to try you. I forget my password and i can't enter in my machine as root or as any user, how can i change the password of any user or of a root to restart to use my Linux partition? 

  This is an alternative to the two suggestions already given to you.

  At the LILO prompt, type shift and then enter:
<linux> init=/bin/sh

  where <linux> is whatever you called the linux partition in /etc/lilo.conf.

  This will give you an extremely minimal rootshell.  You'll have to remount
the root partition read-write:

mount -o remount,rw,errors=remount-ro /

  Then change root's password:
passwd

  I think that should do it.  Running "exec init 2" should bootstrap the system
the rest of the way (ummmm...possibly with some warnings about a read-write
root partition, try "mount -o remount,ro /" first to avoid it)

  I suggest that you then add "restricted" and "password=####### (a secret)" to
/etc/lilo.conf and chmod it to 0600 to keep other people from doing the same
thing. :-) [1]

  Daniel

  [1] although some people will argue (perhaps correctly) that this isn't that
useful a security measure, since bootdisks will work around it, the bios can
be reset, the hard drive can be removed from the box and mounted on another
system, etc, etc, etc..

-- 
/----------------- Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu> -----------------\
|  If you're reading | "I've struggled with reality for thirty-five years, but |
| this, you have too |  I'm glad to say that I finally won."                   |
|   much free time.  |   -- _Harvey_                                           |
\---- Be like the kid in the movie!  Play chess! -- http://www.uschess.org ---/