Re: I screwed up w/ shadow passwords

[Gerhard Kroder <gerhard.kroder@data-sciences.de>]

Martin Waller wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have on old 486 on which I installed debian (slink) (any excuse), but
> forgot my root password.  So I went in and edited /etc/passwords, where
> there were 'x's fro the password fields.
[...] 
> How do I fix this?


these 'x's are ther because you have shadow installed, so you need to
delete rootpassword in /etc/shadow as you have done in passwd. set back
password in passwd to the 'x'. that should work. you may take a look to
manpages for shadow (man -k shadow), especially to pconv/pwunconv and
shadowconfig to swithc between shadow/passwd support.

 gerhard