Anthony Ryan wrote: > > Hi, > I recently got a 486 with Debian 2.1 pre-loaded. I'm also > just getting into unix for the first time, and want a machine to muck > around with. The problem is, I don't know the password or login. I > don't have the OS on an installer disk, so would rather not resort to > wiping the hard drive and starting from scratch. If it comes to that, > how big is it? Is there a work-around?
luckily cracking it is pretty easy. get a debian 2.1 or 2.2 CD#1, or make yourself copies of the boot & root disks for either version. boot the installer when greeted with the install screen hit ALT+F2 run fdisk -l /dev/hda to find the partitions on the disk (if hda isn't right then use the right device hdb, sda, sdb etc..) make a mount point for the root partition(e.g. mkdir /blah) mount the root partition using the editor(i think the editor is ae or something) edit the /etc/shadow file on the root partition, erase the root password(the second field inbetween the first and second colons) BE CAREFUL THATS ALL YOU ERASE. save the file and quit reboot, login with root, no password. there ya go ! nate -- ::: ICQ: 75132336 http://www.aphroland.org/ http://www.linuxpowered.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
