Bug 17240

Summary: Lost the root password of an OLD machine
Product: Base System Reporter: casaubon <casaubon>
Component: miscAssignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Only Me    
Priority: Normal    
Version: Unspecified   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   

Description casaubon 2000-03-07 05:10:01 UTC 
Well, I have a HD with FreeBSD installed, but since the box where
I was running it crashed for good long ago (about 5 years ago)
so I had the HD in a drawer til today, when I got a project to get
that HD up and running and get the info I have in it up again.
My problem is... I forgot the root password and the only password I
remember is of an account that is not in the wheel group, no read
access to /etc/master.passwd.  The single user boot of that system 
is read only access and I cannot edit master.passwd and to make it
worse, the machine is not longer in the same net, so I need root
password to change the configuration.  Any ideas?  Thanks bunches.

Fix: 

How to get the root password of an old box
How-To-Repeat: Turn the box on.
Comment 1 bill fumerola freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2000-03-07 05:11:27 UTC 
State Changed
From-To: open->closed

This is all covered in http://www.FreeBSD.org/FAQ/ 

Also, please use freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org to ask questions 
and the send-pr system to report actual bugs in the future.
Comment 2 oogali 2000-03-07 06:10:48 UTC 
Boot into single-user mode and run fsck, then:
mount -o rw /

And set your password from there, by the way, this isn't a FreeBSD bug, it
should be in -questions rather than -bugs.

On Mon, 6 Mar 2000 casaubon@cybercable.net.mx wrote:

> 
> >Number:         17240
> >Category:       misc
> >Synopsis:       Lost the root password of an OLD machine
> >Confidential:   no
> >Severity:       serious
> >Priority:       high
> >Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
> >State:          open
> >Quarter:        
> >Keywords:       
> >Date-Required:
> >Class:          sw-bug
> >Submitter-Id:   current-users
> >Arrival-Date:   Mon Mar  6 21:10:01 PST 2000
> >Closed-Date:
> >Last-Modified:
> >Originator:     Fernando Casaubon
> >Release:        2.0.1
> >Organization:
> >Environment:
> >Description:
> Well, I have a HD with FreeBSD installed, but since the box where
> I was running it crashed for good long ago (about 5 years ago)
> so I had the HD in a drawer til today, when I got a project to get
> that HD up and running and get the info I have in it up again.
> My problem is... I forgot the root password and the only password I
> remember is of an account that is not in the wheel group, no read
> access to /etc/master.passwd.  The single user boot of that system 
> is read only access and I cannot edit master.passwd and to make it
> worse, the machine is not longer in the same net, so I need root
> password to change the configuration.  Any ideas?  Thanks bunches.
> >How-To-Repeat:
> Turn the box on.
> >Fix:
> How to get the root password of an old box
> 
> >Release-Note:
> >Audit-Trail:
> >Unformatted:
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
> 

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Omachonu Ogali                                     oogali@intranova.net |
| Intranova Networking Group                 http://tribune.intranova.net |
| PGP Key ID:                                                  0xBFE60839 |
| PGP Fingerprint:       C8 51 14 FD 2A 87 53 D1  E3 AA 12 12 01 93 BD 34 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+