Root password expiring

[joen]

A client of mine forgot their root password. I proceeded to walk them on changing their root password by typing in "tools" at the boot:, mount the root fileystem (/mnt) and execute the command:

/etc/chroot /mnt /bin/su -c passwd

I have done this numerous of times with no problem. Here is the kicker, I get this error after executing the command shown above.

Password has expired. Cannot be changed from here.

How can this be? Root password does not expire.

Is there a way to unlock the root account?
Any suggestion is most appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

 

[abovebrd]

I have never heard of the procedure you have listed above?

I was under the impression you needed to boot from a boot disk which contained a copy of /etc/passwd in order to recover from a lost root password ?

Which version of SCO are using ?

-Danny

 

[joen]

All this years that I've been dealing with SCO Unix I have never seen this either?

SCO Version 5.0.5

 

[attitude]

Here is a tip from

http://www.ugu.com

hope this will help
Nulling the Root Password Without vi

This is a way to clear the root password when you don't have access to the vi editor.

Example
Flavors:At&T,BSD
If no one has access to the root password on a system and it is a matter of urgency to get into that system, you can boot miniroot and clear the password out of the root account.This can be done even when the vi editor is inaccessible.To do this on a system using the /etc/shadow file, use the ed editor with 13 dots and your problems solved:

# cp /etc/shadow /etc/shadow.bak

# ed /etc/shadow
1p
s/:.............:/::/
1p
w
q


Line 1:While in the ed editor,go to the first line of the file.
Line2:Switch the first occurrence of a field that has 13 characters with nothing.This is the password field
Line3:Write out the file
Line4:Quit

You're finished!You swapped out the 13 characters of root's password field with nothing and cleared the password.You can now bring the system to single user and change the root password.The same basic commands can be used on the /etc/passwd file for those platforms that don't support shadow passwords.

From Kirk Waingrow's book
Unix Hints & Hacks
owner of

http://www.ugu.com