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Linux fsck, reboots and unknown pw
bloodatonement
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So our IT guy is out of town and probably allegedly out of cell range. Linux box got rebooted but there are some file errors and it says that fsck needs to be manually. Problem is, he didn't leave the password so we can't log in to maintainance mode. and if I ctr-d to do a normal boot, it says some stuff about drives not beeing mounted and then reboots. Any tricks to get this bad boy up and running?
bloodatonement on
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When it complains about fsck, is it at a login prompt? I've had CTRL+D reboot me when I'm at the login prompt.
Assuming you've got physical access to the box, boot into single user mode and reset it from there? Either that or burn a knoppix CD, mount the hard drive with /etc/shadow on it and reset the password from there.
Either of these should work.
Kinda, it says to run fsck in manual mode, then it prompts for the pw to go into maintainance mode, or ctrl-d to do a normal boot.
Yeah, I'm downloading a live cd now
Steam ID: Good Life
Steam ID: Good Life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck or go ahead and type "man fsck" in a terminal window.
Boot into knoppix (at the boot prompt, knoppix lang=us)
Make a new directory in which to mount your filesystem (mkdir temp)
Mount your hard drive (mount /dev/hda1 temp)
Change to the hard-drives /etc/ directory (cd temp/etc)
open it for editing (vi shadow)
Find the root (Edit: assuming maintence = root, if not find the 'maintenance' entry)
It will look something like root:dsfDSTG!s:12581:0:99999:7:::
Delete everything between the first and second colons (bolded for don't mess this set up)
So then it will look like root::12581:0:99999:7::: (only the bits between the first and second colons matter, for goodness sake don't change anything else)
Save & exit (:wq in vi)
Change to home directory (cd ~)
Unmount the hard drive (umount temp)
reboot, and remove the knoppix cd from the drive.
Your root account now has no password (this probably needs changing)
You've given no indication of how much you know about what you're doing so I've guessed at a low knowledge level, do any steps need explaining?
That pw reset looks way too scary, glad I didn't need to use it.
Steam ID: Good Life
Consider this a timely reminder to document root passwords! (probably in a safe somewhere if it's an important system)