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

[Roger Whittaker]

Try doing this: just boot the system, but at the boot prompt type

<kernelname> init=/bin/bash

Then you can edit /etc/passwd to remove the root password.

It worked for me (on SuSE) recently.  I was also a muppet - no longer ...


On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, 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.  It has a scsi HD (sda1) which I have managed to mount and CDROM
> (dunno) which I havent after booting of tomsrtbt.
>
> help.
>
> I want to re-install linux on the box but haven't got a clue how to go about
> it under the current circumstances.  I don't seem to be able to do anything
> without root priveleges.  Oh, and to make matters more interesting, the
> motherboard/bios does not support booting from CDROM :-)
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Will.
>
>
>

-- 

-------------------
Roger Whittaker
SuSE Linux Ltd
The Kinetic Centre
Theobald Street
Borehamwood
Herts
WD6 4PJ

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  020 8387 1482
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 roger at suse.co.uk
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