confused: Hi, hope you can help me, i lost the root´s password, what can i do?

thanks

If you can boot up into single user mode. this will auto log you into the root account, then you can

passwd

and then change the password

At the lilo (or grub or whatever) prompt, add a 1 to the end of the kernel arguments and boot as normal. This will throw you into singel user mode. Some distros require the root password to enter init 1 though (as they should).

Failing that, get the ISO for a "run from the CD Linux" and mount up your root filesystem. Edit /etc/shadow and remove the string of text between the first two colons. Example:

then reboot and change root's password to anything you like.

Note: the above is from a DragonFly machine, and Linux differs slightly, but it's the same basic operation.

HTH

Instead of removing that, it would be safer if you replace it with one of the users part and use user's password to login as root.

The poster can't log in as root as it is. If you're down to hand editing shadow, it's not really possible to make the situation with the root account any worse.

that's not true.
I can think of a worse situation.
deleting the shadow file

That would indeed do it, but if you delete the file by editing it, you shouldn't have been there in the first place.

My point was that if you're playing about in shadow, adding a the password field from another account isn't any safer than just deleting the offending password field all together.

quote:
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get the ISO for a "run from the CD Linux" and mount up your root filesystem.
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Iam a newbie. I didn't get this point. Can some one explain what this means. Will this work for any Distr. of Linux or only for SuSE.

Thanks,
Sridhar.

in any distro, i think the cd gives you an option to boot in rescue mode.
it runs a small linux version in the memory and mounts your actual root partition (/) under something
like /mnt/sysimage. This way it gives you the opportunity to access your partitions and fix whatever problem you may have

if you boot from your first suse 9.x cd you have to choose manual installation in the following dialog boxes you can choose what you like to boot and here you can tell him to boot a rescue system --> thats the way you want to go .... voila you have your rescue system now mount the root partition and do as described before ;_)

hi people, sorry as you may have noticed i´m kind of new at this
as to the info you sent, it did't work or i probably couldnt make it work
(the problem is i lost the roots password on SuSE 9.0)

a little fisher price help will be appreciated
thanks

hi All,

leave this booting from cd idea

Even u can go to single mode using ur OS.

For Lilo: Boot into ur linux text mode using CTrl+x and write "linux single" command and when u get teh prompt enter passwd command

For Grub:
On boot screen selecting linux press 'e' tp eidt that boot
then again press 'e' and write 'linux single' or 'init 1' and then press 'b'.It will take u to shell and enter passwd command .Rest ur root password.

thnx

rabeea -- Your instructions just repeat what's already been said, and in that spirit, I'll repeat myself.

What you propose will only be of use if the system doesn't require root's password for single user access. If it does, then you're no better off than you started ... not to mention, your instructions by themselves have a low [read: next to nill] chance of working. Very few distros use "linux" for the kernel image name anymore.

Having said that ...

Adrian13 -- here's a page that describes the correct way to boot into single user mode from grub.

Here's one page that describes resetting the root password, and here's another.

Not sure if they qualify for "Fisher Price" help or not, but they're more verbose than I. Try them out.