Re: mouse & root password

[Adam Galant <agalant@telestar.com.pl>]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Johan van der Walt wrote:

> My problem has nothing to do with installing Debian. 
> 
> I have been away for a couple of months and on return I found that my
> mouse just doesn't work anymore. But then I realized that I forgot the
> root password so I can't get into the system to fix the mouse problem.
> 
> How can I change the root password? I tried using the rescue mode but that
> did not bring me any further.
> 

Try issuing

linux init=/bin/bash

command line in lilo prompt.

This will load /bin/sh instead of usual init, then you probably have to:

mount -n -o remount,rw /

because your root filesystem is mounted reaonly.

Then you can:

/usr/bin/vi /etc/shadow

or (if you don't use shadow passwords):

/usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd

and you clean password in root's entry (that's the second column,
should look like a nonsense mix of letters and digits).

Then, after standard reboot, you can login as root without password.

Remember to change root password after that!

Regards,

Adam