Forgotten root password

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Fri, Apr 09, 2004 at 11:11:11PM -0400, Drew Taylor wrote:
> I'm resurrecting an old RH 7.3 box and I've forgotten the root password. 
> :-( In addition, I seem to have tossed the old install discs I burned as 
> well. I have a non-root login I remember so I can log into the system. 
> But I can't upgrade apache/perl/etc. What are my options?

The boot loader you have on that machine is probably LILO.  At the
Linux prompt, boot to single user mode by typing this:

  linux s

This will boot the system minimally and give you a root shell.  You
can basically do what you want from here.  That is, assuming you did
not set a password in the boot loader to prevent this kind of access
from being easy...

> PS. At some point I'll probably upgrade to Fedora Core or Debian (via 
> Knoppix I think). I also understand about vulnerabilities in such an old 
> release and the box is 100% not accessible from the outside.

Well, my advice is don't put off until tomorrow what you really ought
to do today...  If you have this kind of situation, you really should
just upgrade the box before you do anything else.  That'll solve your
root access problem.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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