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by badhavi57

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I fogot my login password. Is it possible to get it or is it possible to overwrite ? I am working in unix system. I know my login name.

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3 replies

by cpfeiffe

If this is not the root password you can find someone with root access to overwrite it for you and then once you login you can change it to anything you want with the 'passwd' command. If this is the root password there are a few steps to get back up -
1) shut the system down
2) instert the installation CD
3) at the OK prompt type 'boot cdrom -s'
4) once you are logged in mount the root file system (typically /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0, but you may want to verify before shutting down) 'mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /mnt'
5) edit the hidden passwd file - shadow 'vi /mnt/etc/shadow'
6) find the root line and in the second field (separated by colons) remove everything (this allows root to login with no password)
7) 'umount /mnt'
8) shut down the system and eject the CD
9) at the ok prompt simply type 'boot' and you will come up to normal operation mode
10) Once the system is up you can login with no password as root and then change it.

This seems like a big security hole, but it requiresphysical access to the machine. Once you have physical access the game is pretty much over anyway.

Good luck.

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