From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Aug 4 21:10:33 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95D6737B401 for ; Sun, 4 Aug 2002 21:10:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wantadilla.lemis.com (wantadilla.lemis.com [192.109.197.80]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E58E543E6A for ; Sun, 4 Aug 2002 21:10:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: by wantadilla.lemis.com (Postfix, from userid 1004) id A49618146D; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 13:40:23 +0930 (CST) Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 13:40:23 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey To: Desmond Lee Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: root unkown? Message-ID: <20020805041023.GM83171@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20020805034634.GL83171@wantadilla.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.99i Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sunday, 4 August 2002 at 21:06:14 -0700, Desmond Lee wrote: > On Sunday, August 04, 2002 8:47 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: >> On Sunday, 4 August 2002 at 20:42:36 -0700, Desmond Lee wrote: >>> Hi there >>> >>> I can't log into my machine because i hosed the /etc/group and the >>> /etc/master.passwd files while doing an upgrade. >>> >>> Anywho, i'm looking at the freebsd faq , 10.14. I have forgotten the root >>> password! What do I do?, to try and change the root password. But when i >> do >>> 'passwd root' i get a message like 'passwd: Unkown user root". >> >> Right, that's what you do when you've lost the password. If you've >> lost the user, you'll have to restore it. You should be able to do it >> like this: >> >> 1. Boot into single user mode. >> 2. Mount the live file system CD-ROM. >> 3. Copy the files /etc/group and /etc/master.passwd to their correct >> place. >> 4. Run: >> >> # pwd_mkdb /etc/master.passwd >> >> This will give you a root user with no password. You should obviously >> fix that as soon as possible. If you don't have the live file system, >> they're on the installation ISO as well, but that's more work. > > What's the live file system? The second CD-ROM of the four CD set. > If i don't have it, can you tell me how i can get my hands on it? Order the set :-) Or find a workaround. > The old /etc/group and /etc/master.passwd are in the /var/backups/ > but when i copied them over to /etc/ and rebooted nothing happened? > Should i then execute pwd_mkdb, or am i just talking nonsense? No, that's probably what you're missing. Run the last step, that should be enough. > Um... i have a freebsd 4.4 installation cd that came with the book i > bought, but is that of any use? No, use the copy you have. It probably has the correct users and passwords in it. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. If you don't, I may ignore the reply. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message