Hi, I'm running on a HP-UX 10.2 platform and I've lost the root password. Anybody that has the know-how to overcome this, please help. Thanks in advance.

I'm not famaliar with HP-UX but if it's anything like other Unices I'll be able to help... You must get root access to the machine either by booting up with a floppy disk or something else like that. After booting with floppy, mount the root filesystem on /tmp or whereever you like. cd to /tmp/etc and edit the 'shadow' file. each line will begin with the username. Go to the 'root' line and delete everthing between the first and secone colon (but not the colons themselves) now unmount the root filesystem, reboot the machine and login as root with no password! If HP-UX isn't standard, this won't work, don't cry to me, I did my best to help out.

The previously posted message WILL NOT WORK. That advice is OK for linux or BSD running on a PC with shadow suite installed, but not for the big iron. And incidentally, there is no such thing as a standard unix. I admin 5 different flavors and they are all grotesquely, gratuitously unique. Linux is far superior in that regard, but still there are plenty of distros without shadow passwords. If you are running NIS (yellow pages) talk to your NIS central administrator. Otherwise follow this recipe: Boot into single user mode. (Look it up in your HP manual set, the process differs with the operating system and console hardware). You can now bypass system security. If you are what HP calls a "trusted system" you will need to use the passwd command to change root's password. If not, you can edit /etc/passwd and delete the password hash. Keep in mind that if you corrupt the /etc/passwd file you are screwed, so make a backup copy before using a text editor on it. Other options are the usermod command and SAM. Don't use SAM. It is dangerously bug-ridden and can destroy vital system files for no apparent reason. Good luck. In passing, I'll note that you can actually decrypt the root password on an HP-UX system with John the Ripper, but that is for crackers and security gurus only. --Charlie

Well fine, it doesn't work as I said it might not. But saying there isn't a standard unix is bogus. POSIX compliance is everything now.

Hi, Please help me out, how to recover root password in HP-unix and IBM unix. very badly needed. Thanks regards R. Balaraman