I am in an interesting situation.

I just inherited a server from another admin (appserver1). The ability to ssh as root has been disabled, and the only person who had sudo access to root forgot his password (I can log on as the oracle user).

I tried running sudo as oracle but it fails b/c oracle is not in the sudoers file, and I can't su to the old admin's id b/c the permissions on the su binary has been modified.

My question is, is there a way to reset the old admin's password without having to go into run level 1 and gaining root access that way? I'm just curious.

You can't necessarily get in by using run level 1---depends how the system is set up.

I only know two ways---both involving booting from a live CD.
1. mount the hard drive and then use chroot to "get inside". Then change the root password normally
2. mount the hard drive and edit /etc/passwd to remove the first "x"---you can then reboot and login as root without a password

No. sorry. You can reset password only in runlevel 1 or with liveCD.
Regards

No--not always. My current system (Arch) asks for password going to RL-1.

Looking for info on how to change this.......

Try this one.

Boot on safe mode (if there's a safe mode option on your system)

after loading.

type: init 1 (to enter run level 1)
type: passwd (system will tell you to enter a new password)
type the new password for root:


Hope this help.

u need to use passwd command to change your root password.

and here are the list of other password related tools which may be helpful to u.

http://linuxhelp-rbdharnia.rhcloud.c...jsp?namex=pass

Hi
Few days back .I faced out different scenerio selinux enable and made me to not to enter into login prompt .These how i solved my problem

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ps-4175412697/

In your scenerio you can put the server in recovery mode chroot into server


Do what pixellany replied you

edit /etc/passwd to remove the first "x"---you can then reboot and login as root without a password

Another solution is

edit /etc/sudoers make the oracle to sudo permission and reboot the server login the server using oracle user and reset root password

If you read the thread, you will see that the OP cannot log in as root---thus your (obvious) answer is not relevant.

"u"----Did you mean to say "you"?