help: LF 5510 Password recovery without loosing config

[paulypaul]

I have some remote operations guys that got a hold of the WR local password on a 5510. They changed it, and have since forgotten it.

without initializing the switch is there a way to recover that password? I back door if you will.

I know there was a trick with the old Bay310's.

 

[labigmac]

On the 5510 the password has to be applied to where you want to use it E.G telnet.

It might be worth connecting a console port to the switch and see if they have applied the login prompt to the serial interface.

I do not know of a way of recovering and getting control with out physical access to the switch unless you are going to go down the brute force route. (Would they use a dictionary word for a password?)

If you have physical access you can press and hold the white Nortel button, using the right combinations allows you to do some stuff like change the management IP address. BUT this might also factory default the config too.
The lights on the switch ports change to represent different values of commands or which there are quite a few.

Have a look at the 5510 documentation on the Nortel site, you might find a useful combination.
Good luck.
Mat.

 

[paulypaul]

actually there are two ways.

1. make a ticket with Nortel. they have a backdoor password you can ask for. it is tied to the MAC

2. make a .cfg file with new passwords that match the ASCII config syntax. Providing you have SNMP RW access you can push the new file to the switch using JDM

 

[anthonyanderberg]

I haven't done it on a 5510, but on older switches if you call Nortel to get a back-door password you also need the switch serial number.

People have also had luck making the affected switch a member of a stack in such a way that it is not the 'master' unit, the switch should then inherit the stack's config.