What happened to my password?

ssimontis · 02-21-2005, 02:28 PM

I just ran up2date on my new FC3 system, and had to reboot for the new kernel. When I tried to login, I noticed my password wouldn't work! I tried it several times, with no success. Figuring I might have mistyped my account name, i tried to log in as root, only to discover that my root password didn't work either! What is going on? Is there some way I can change my password without logging in?

Matir · 02-21-2005, 02:30 PM

Well, you can go into single user mode by appending init=/bin/bash to the kernel command line. It will be a VERY limited shell, but you can try to fix your error from there.

ssimontis · 02-21-2005, 02:50 PM

What can I do from there? I don't know what to do. I tried booting to an earlier kernel, and that didn't work either.

mikeyt_333 · 02-21-2005, 02:56 PM

in single user mode type: passwd, then when prompted enter in your new password. (the passwd is not a type, there is no "or" in the command)

ssimontis · 02-21-2005, 02:59 PM

I get an error "passwd: Authentication token lock busy" when I try to change the password. What does this mean? Thanks for the help so far.

ssimontis · 02-21-2005, 05:39 PM

My account isn't listed under /etc/passwd either, but root is. The error passwd gives me is now "authentication failed". In case it helps, I created my account during the first time configuration.

ssimontis · 02-22-2005, 07:01 AM

Is there some way to use knoppix to do this? I saw some articles on google, but most of them were on how to get Windows passwords. IS there some way to do this with Linux, or do I just have to reinstall?