[Gllug] I have forgotten my root password, I am a muppet.

[John Hearns]

will wrote:

>Hello again.
>
>As the subject line implies I have forgotten the root password to an old 486
>box that I was playing around with at home.  It is a fresh install of
>mandrake 7.1 and it is just that the usernames/passwords are different to
>the ones I entered on install (I had had a few beers, that might have
>something to do with it).  I managed to get in using a user account but this
>has no priveliges to do anything outside it's home directory.  I have a
>tomsrtbt disk and have booted up using that, but don't know what the hell to
>do next.  
>
I had to do this once (legitimately).
A colleague of mine called me in to look at an SGI O2 we had bought 
second hand
from a bankrupt company in the States. Root password unknown.
He was might impressed when I walked back in half an hour
with a big cheesy grin and told him the password.



What you need to do is, as you have already done, boot it with a rescue 
disk.
Get a hold of a copy of the password file, or /etc/shadow.
Transfer this to another system - even just by writing the root entry 
down on paper.
Then run Crack on it, or even better John the Ripper
http://www.openwall.com/john/






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