[SOLVED] Remote installation request root password

jjthomas · 12-21-2013, 05:56 PM

I'm trying to do the Remote Installation as provided here. I am able to make the ssh connection, login as root and I am prompted for a password.

From looking at /etc/shadow there does not appear to be a password.

I was able to run passwd from the computer console and change the password to a blank password.

Bug?

-JJ

wildwizard · 12-21-2013, 06:26 PM

While I can't help you with the overall setup required I can point out that entering a blank password with passwd does not clear the password but rather sets it as null.

A null password will result in a password prompt and not all programs will allow a blank password in these cases as they consider a null password as an error.

jjthomas · 12-21-2013, 08:15 PM

I just needed something to get me though the installation. Once the installation was completed, I set a password.

-JJ

slac-in-the-box · 12-22-2013, 01:29 AM

shouldn't need password:

Quote:

start the embedded SSH server (Slackware uses dropbear as the SSH server). You can then do a remote login as root (no password will be asked! Be sure that your network is secure before you attempt this).

Are you booting from a PXE Server?
Is dropbear running?

drmozes · 12-22-2013, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjthomas

I'm trying to do the Remote Installation as provided here. I am able to make the ssh connection, login as root and I am prompted for a password.

From looking at /etc/shadow there does not appear to be a password.

I was able to run passwd from the computer console and change the password to a blank password.

Bug?

-JJ

Busybox is built to allow an empty password, and in the run up to releasing 14.1 I found that it was no longer effective, and worked around it for Slackware ARM by adding this hack to the installer's rc.local which just adds in the encrypted 'empty' password:

Code:

sed -i 's?^root:.*?root:joFWnPF2bJhPc:0:0:::::?g' /etc/shadow

However, I thought it'd been fixed properly - perhaps not.
If you need to boot the installer with a working empty password, you could unpack the installer, edit the shadow file and re-pack it.

Code:

cd slackware-14.1/isolinux
mkdir q; cd q
zcat ../initrd.img | cpio -di
sed -i 's?^root:.*?root:joFWnPF2bJhPc:0:0:::::?g' etc/shadow
find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9fv > ../initrd.img

jjthomas · 12-26-2013, 06:03 PM

drmozes, looks like you provided a solution so I'll mark the thread SOLVED.

Thank you.

-JJ