At Thu, 3 Feb 2011 20:12:17 +0100 CentOS mailing list <centos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi :)
>
> On Thursday 03 February 2011 14:59 Giles Coochey wrote
> > On 03/02/2011 14:40, Rafa Griman wrote:
> > > Hi :)
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 3:44 PM, James Bensley<jwbensley@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >> So on a virtual server the root password was no longer working (as in
> > >> I couldn't ssh in anymore). Only I and one other know it and neither
> > >> of us have changed it. No other account had the correct privileges to
> > >> correct this so I'm wondering, if I had mounted that vdi as a
> > >> secondary device on another VM, browsed the file system and delete
> > >> /etc/shadow would this have wiped all users passwords meaning I could
> > >> regain access again?
> > >>
> > >> (This is past tense because its sorted now but I'm curious if this
> > >> would have worked? And if not, what could I have done?).
> > >
> > > As the other said: DON'T delete /etc/shadow.
> > >
> > > Someone also mentioned you could modify the hash in /etc/shadow. This
> > > will work if you are root or have the right permissions with sudo.
> > >
> > > If you can reboot the system, what really works great is passing the
> > > following option to the kernel on the lilo/grub screen when the system
> > >
> > > boots:
> > > init=/bin/bash
> > >
> > > This will give you a shell without being asked for a password (unless
> > > the sys admin has done his homework ;) Now that you have shell access
> > >
> > > ... you are in charge so you can:
> > > - mount the / partition and chroot
> > >
> > > - edit /etc/shadow and delete the password hash
> > >
> > > - whatever you can imagine ... you decide ;)
> >
> > That would do it... There is single-user-mode (runlevel 1), just add the
> > word single to the kernel parameters line before bootup
> >
> > It will give you the same result and mount stuff without the need to
> > chroot etc...
>
>
> Yes, but S|Single|1 asks for root password to login ... And he doesn't have
> the root password ;)
RedHat / RHEL / CentOS does not do that! At least never on any of my
machines -- is there some config option for that? Yes, for manual fchk
it does, but not otherwise.
>
> Rafa
>
--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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