Re: lost my root password, howto ?

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Zouari Fourat wrote:
> Hello,
> I've got debian sarge installed and i've lost my root's password, how
> to reset it ?
>   
This is probably found via google fairly easily, as it comes up fairly 
often.

A couple of quick possibilities:

1) Boot off a live CD like Knoppix, mount the / partition as read/write, 
and edit "/etc/passwd", removing the "x" in the second field. Save the 
file, boot into single-user mode (not using Knoppix), and reset the 
password with "passwd". (You may need to then check to make sure the "x" 
is back in place; I can't recall.)

or if you don't have a live CD handy

2) at the lilo prompt (or equivalent), enter "linux init=/bin/bash". 
This will give you a very limited linux environment, in which you can 
remount the / partition read/write (like "mount -o remount,rw /dev/hda1 
/"), and then make the changes mentioned above in scenario #1.

--
Kent