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From: ron@cs.athabascau.ca (Ron Haukenfrers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: Getting to root when the password has been lost
Message-ID: <251@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 7 Sep 90 16:06:37 GMT
References: <24411@adm.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 16

SCEF0003%WSUVM1.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu (James N. Petersen) writes:

>Recently, we had a graduate student leave, after having changed the
>password for root on our UNIX V/3.2.2 system (AT&T UNIX/386).  Is there
>any way we can get in and reset the password to a known value?

One of the quickest ways is to boot off disk 1 in the distribution disks,
halt the install and get the micro kernel running.  You then can mount
the root file system and modify the passwd file.  This does work as I've had
to perform this little operation myself.  Instructions for booting off the
flop are in the Admin Guide, 6-23, Recovery From Major Hard Disk Damage.


Ron Haukenfrers     	 	{alberta,cbmvax,decwrl}!atha!ron
Educational Computing     	or ron@cs.AthabascaU.CA
Athabasca University