Re: password problem

[<tomas@tuxteam.de>]

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On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 10:25:35PM -0300, Daniel Bareiro wrote:
> Hi, Bob.
> 
> On 11/07/16 22:02, Bob Holtzman wrote:
> 
> > Running a new hard drive in my Thinkpad 420 laptop and trying to install 
> > jessie. Everything went fine until it failed to configure the net work 
> > with dns. Strange, since I had a good connection to the modem and was 
> > getting a signal at the ethernet connection where the cable connected to 
> > the laptop. 

[...]

> Something that maybe you could try is to boot using a livecd, make a
> chroot to "/" and run "passwd" to set the password for the user that the
> system is not taking.

Up there "chroot to /" means "chroot to wherever the installation target
filesystem gets mounted", I guess. I forget at the moment where that is
in a rescue system

This seems like the most promising path. I do more or less the same, but
usually forgo the chroot step and edit .../etc/passwd (wherever the target
file system is mounted, blanking out the password field (nr 2), e.g.

  file: /etc/passwd
  ,---------------------------
  | ...
  | bilbo:x:1001:1001:Bilbo Baffins:/home/bilbo:/bin/bash


Notice the colon separated fields. Nr 2 (typically just an 'x' these
days, which means "password not here. Go look in /etc/shadow". Just
delete it, getting:

  bilbo::1001:1001:Bilbo Baffins:/home/bilbo:/bin/bash
  
There is a double colon in there now, that is important.

Now reboot and bilbo can log in without password. Don't forget to issue
passwd to set one again!

Having done this exercise is important to get an impression of
what password protection is good for and what not :-)

regards
- -- t
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