I have a little factory with Slackware server. I also use the Gnu/Linux systems, and my sysadmin losed the root password, and the passwords of my clients.
How can I have the root privilegies and to obtain the root and the users (my clients) passwords?

Thanks,
Shifter

if one could access the root and other users' passwords, noone would use linux.
theres no way to retrieve the root password

To gain root privilegies you can reset the root's password.
You need to boot in using a liveCD, mount the / partition somewhere, and remove the field password for root from the file /etc/shadow.

After that, boot your system; root has no password anymore.

You can reset the users's password by issuing the command "passwd username" as root and installing a new password.

There is no way to figure out what was the previous password.
Well, there is one way: guessing !

There is a good program to do that: John the Ripper. It uses a dictionary to guessing passwords.

http://www.openwall.com/john/pro/

I hope this can help you,

nice walkthrough marozsas

hey nadroj,

I hope shifter is not a bad guy trying to crack someone else's machine

see'ya,

well, the only way he could do this is if he had physical access to the machine. and if he does, then the person who owns the machine should have had better locks!

Or you could edit the files to make one of the normal users with a known password into a root user, I suppose..

That's a classic Catch 22 there....

1. Don't have root password
2. Change files to give user root privleges
3. You need root pass to change those files

Getting a little cyclic, there...

Best way is the live cd route mentioned earlier

You use a live CD to change the files that give the user root priveledges: It's much the same thing, only it doesn't run the (admittedly minor) risk of booting a computer with a root account that anybody can access: A password is still required.

As mentioned, boot with a CD and erase the password.

Be aware: If you are using the ssh deamon, remember to shutdown this service BEFORE boot with empty root password or block port 22.

If you run ssh deamon, anyone can enter at your computer.

Don't use empty root password, write it somewhere (in your wallet)

if
your lilo is not "passwd locked"
then
at the lilo prompt add a word "single" to the end of the line, tehn you can boot into machine (i think it will be telinit1 )

then type "chpasswd", i have used this many times, in grub too

Agreed, sounds a little fishy...

OK, guys.

Looks like this person actually wants to hack the system.

This thread was posted by this poster.

Up to you if you want to help him screw the system he's hacking.

As far as I know, this ain't a hacking forum....

why isn't the sysadmin asking these questions? is it your own factory? or are you a employee there? did the sysadmin just quit without telling you the root password? where is Shifter?

For only 8 posts, he asks some really weird questions...
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=444664

wtf? If you add it all up, he needs a binary perl script to run on his factory Slackware server but he lost the root password? And this one is even stranger...