password problem

[koffie 0]

I am an absolute newbie but somehow I managed to install mandrake 10.1 I've locked the screen and I've forgotten my password. What can I do ?

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Reboot, this time sign in as root and give the root password when it asks. Once signed in as root, run kusers and change or fix your password for regular user there.

[iamroot 0]

Do you have your root password?

[cr4sh 0]

1. boot into single user mode

2. mount the drive in rw mode

3. at the command prompt type

root@localhost$ passwd root

 

- enter a new password

- ilovefatboys

 

[cr4sh 0]

[ continuing on - ignore the ilovefatboys i have sum gay ppl in my computer class]

 

- restart

root@localhost$ init 6

 

[phlax 0]

Hahahaha your gay and you cant constain yourself!!

[prakash0106 0]

Well, there is yet another way in which we can get root. In the first method, we typed ‘linuxconf’ in the bash shell prompt, however, we could type the following to create a new account with root privileges and without any password:

 

 

 

echo “ankit::0:0:::” >> /etc/passwd

 

 

 

This command will basically edit the /etc/passwd file which is the password file which stores the Passwords and Usernames of all accounts on the machine. One thing to remember here is that you can edit the /etc/passwd file only if you are logged in as root, however, in this case we are not logged in as root, but we have booted into linux single which gives us the root shell. Hence, we can still edit it.

 

 

 

Anyway, to understand how exactly the above command works and how it is able to create a new account without a password, we need to learn the /etc/passwd file is structured.