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How to Reset forgotten Root passwords

By Suramya Tomar

1.0 Introduction

Suppose you have just taken over as a new system administrator from another person just before they left and they forgot to give you the root password. Now, let's say you have to install the latest version of PHP on the system so that the sales department's website works the way its supposed to. You have to get the website up yesterday, since you are losing money every minute it doesn't work. Or maybe you simply need to add another user to the system.

The above scenarios are just two possible cases when you might need to reset the root password on a system; there are hundreds of other possible cases when you might need to do this, but I am not going to list all of them. Most of us know what to do when something like this happens on a Windows machine, but not a lot of us know how to recover lost passwords from Linux machines. This document attempts to rectify this situation by telling you about the different options available to recover passwords from YOUR machines. (Don't use this to break into other people's systems as that would be stupid and will get you into big trouble if you are caught.)

1.1 Disclaimer

Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

The information in this document should only be used to recover passwords from machines to which you have legal access. If you use this information to break into other people's systems, then I am not responsible for it and you deserve your fate when you are caught. So don't blame me.

You are strongly advised to make a backup of your system before performing any of the actions listed in this document.

1.2 Credits

In this version, I have the pleasure of acknowledging the following people without whose input this would have never seen the light of the day:

1.3 Before you start

Before you attempt to change or replace the password of any machine, make sure you get permission from the management authorizing it, 'cause otherwise it can be mistaken as an attempt to hack into the machine, which is not good.

Secondly, create a backup of all important data before you do anything else, so if anything goes wrong you'll still have a copy of your data. If you didn't, and something went wrong, don't blame me. I tested most of this stuff on my system and it worked, but you are responsible for your system, not me, so don't blame me if something did go wrong.

2.1 Various Options available

There are various methods available for resetting a root password. In this section, I will list all the major ones, and we will go over each in detail later in the document. I will also go over some steps to prevent some other person from doing this and hacking your machine.

The various methods are:

2.1.1 Reseting passwords by booting into single-user mode

This is the easiest and the fastest method to reset passwords. The steps are a little different depending on if you are using GRUB or LILO as a bootmanager.

Booting into single-user mode from LILO

Follow these steps to reset the password when using LILO:

Lilo Boot Menu
Figure 1. Lilo Boot Menu

If you have a new version of LILO which gives you a menu selection of the various kernels available press Tab to get the LILO: prompt and then proceed as shown above.

Booting into single user mode from GRUB

Follow these steps to reset the password when using GRUB:

GRUB boot screen
Fig. 2: GRUB Boot Screen

2.1.2 Reseting passwords by using a boot disk and editing the password file

This method is a little bit more complicated than the previous one and has a very high chance of success (assuming your filesystem is not encrypted and you didn't forget the password to decrypt it if it is). As before, get permission before you do this.

To start, you need a Linux boot disk or a rescue disk. (If you didn't create one when prompted during the installation then let this be a lesson for you.) You can use your installation CD as a rescue disk; most distros have an option to allow you to boot into rescue mode. With my Redhat Linux CD, I have to enter linux rescue to start the rescue mode. But this might be a bit different in each distro. You can also use a live linux CD like Knoppix or Gnoppix for system recovery. (Click here for a list of all the live Linux CD's). In this tutorial I will use Knoppix as my rescue CD but the process is almost the same for any rescue CD you might use.

[ You can also download one of the many single-floppy Linux distributions (e.g., Tom's RootBoot ), and use it to bring up the machine as described. This is, of course, much faster than downloading and burning a rescue CD, especially on a slow connection. -- Ben ]

Follow these steps to reset the password using Knoppix:

Knoppix boot screen
Fig. 3: Knoppix Boot Screen

2.1.2 Reseting passwords by mounting on another system and editing the password file

This option is a bit more work than any of the earlier options but is almost sure to work (except when the filesystem is encrypted).

Follow these steps to reset the password:

3.1 How to Prevent someone else from reseting your root password

If you are an even slightly security-consious sysadmin, the previous sections must have set off alarms while you were reading them. Is it really that easy to hack Linux? Yes and No. It all it comes down to the following: Physical Access is Root Access. Meaning, if you give someone physical access to a system, then you are giving them a very good chance of getting root access on your box. This is true for Windows, Linux, or any other OS out there.

But... you say that you need to give some people physical access to the server? There are some precautions you can take to slow down attackers and stop the noob's. In this section I will talk about various ways you can make your computer more secure against these types of attacks. So lets get started.

3.1.1 Password protecting GRUB and LILO

First, edit the /etc/inittab file and insert the following line, right after the "initdefault" line: ~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin. This will require a password to boot into single-user mode by making init run 'sulogin' before dropping the machine to a root shell. 'sulogin' requires the user to input the root password before continuing.

Unfortunately, the above step won't protect us against people who know what they are doing and pass init=/bin/bash to the kernel at the LILO prompt. To prevent unauthorized access I would suggest that you password protect LILO/GRUB by following these steps:

How to Protect LILO:

How to password-protect GRUB

3.1.2 Password-protecting the BIOS

There are two primary reasons for password-protecting the BIOS of a computer:

Because the methods for setting a BIOS password vary between computer manufacturers, you should consult the manual for your computer. If you forget the BIOS password, it can often be reset either with jumpers on the motherboard or by disconnecting the CMOS battery. However, you should check the manual for your computer or motherboard before attempting this procedure.

4.1 Conclusion

By now I have hopefully saved you a lot of trouble by telling you how to recover your root password and make it harder for others to get the password. If you think this document helped you, or you have some comments or questions about this please feel free to Contact Me and let me know. However I must warn you that I am a somewhat lazy person who might take a little while before replying to your emails.

 


[BIO]

I was born in 1980 in a small Air Force hospital in Hashimara, India. I then spent the next 18 years of my life all over India during which I had the pleasure of attending 7 schools to complete 12 years of schooling.

I started using Linux in late 1999 when a friend lent me a Redhat 7.1 installation CD and another friend 'donated' a 6GB harddisk. This was right after my Win98 had crashed for the nth time so I decided to give Linux a shot. I tried it and got hooked almost instantly. Over the next 2 years I upgraded to Redhat 7.3 but when Redhat decided to stop support for RH 7.3 I switched to Debian and have been living happily ever since.

I like to program a lot and have recently figured out how to decipher the jumble of characters some people like to call Perl and found that I actually like it. For websites I like using PHP with MySQL backends and can program with C, C++, VB and .Net. I am also very interested in computer security and Artificial Intelligence and try to read as much on these topics as I can.

Other than working on the computer I like reading (mainly Fantasy and Science Fiction but I will read anything except romance novels), listening to music (fav singers include: Shania Twain, In-Grid, Crystal Waters) and taking stuff apart to see how it works.

If you are really bored and want to learn more about me then feel free to visit my website at: http://www.suramya.com where you will find more info about me than you ever wanted to know.

Copyright © 2004, Suramya Tomar. Released under the Open Publication license

Published in Issue 107 of Linux Gazette, October 2004

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