Re: Forgotten SUSE Linux root Password

Dave <INVALID-see-signature-for-how-to-determine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Moe Trin wrote:
>
> > When you have physical access to the system, you own it. Been that way
> > for over fourteen years in Linux, and maybe thirty years in UNIX. In
> > the case of Linux, you don't even need the rescue system disc. Read the
> > BootPrompt-HOWTO, or use the same search engine you posted from to search
> > the news group 'comp.os.linux.security'. With LILO (and the similar 'milo'
> > and 'silo'), Loadlin, and friends, passing the arguement '1' or 'single'
> > is a big hint. If you are using GRUB, it's marginally harder. If you read
> > the man pages for your boot loader, you _might_ even discover the (several)
> > ways to prevent this. Imagine that!!!
> >
> > Old guy
>
> I think his point was that his method did not require hand editing the
> password file to remove it. I think he did it in a chroot enviroment,
> getting the passwd command to change /etc/passwd, rather than vi or vipw.
>
> I'm personally not convinced editing the password by hand is such a big
> deal, but I think that was his point. I did not look closely.

Isn't that the same thing that Moe is saying? I.e. if you have
physical access to the system, it's trivial to become root. Once you're
root, you can change the password, by *any* means, i.e. also with the
passwd command.
.

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