Hi AIX Gurus,

I've purchased a second hand pSeries and don't know the root password. I've used the following instruction to reset root password and everything seems just fine. However, after it reboots, the system still says the root password I used is invalid. I really don't know why. I did use "sync; sync; sync; reboot" after resetting root password. Please help. Thank you in advance.

pSeries and AIX Information Center

I'd start with checking that root is allowed to login at all. Second thought: given that you purchased your server from abroad it might be installed with a locale that is different from what you expect. Reset the password again and use only chars and numbers to prevent you being tricked by a wrong keyboard layout.

(1) I use its serial port to connect to its console. Root access should not be a problem in this case, I think.

(2) It is a US system. I have tried different types of passwords from abc to axadf23adfddf - you know what I mean.

Thanks.

I see. Well, in this case you might want to think about what the difference between 'rlogin' and 'login' could be.
As you are sure about what characters you typed you could check next whether there is an asterisk or an exclamation mark in the password field of /etc/passwd. An asterisk would point at a problem during setting the password and also prevent you from login in. Subsequently you would then check whether the crypted password is in /etc/security/passwd.

Somewhat unlikely but possible would be that the option account_locked is set to true or the the loginretries counter is set to a positive integer with the unsuccessful_login_count exceeding that number. Run 'lsuser root' as root to find out.

These suggestions sound good. I will try them this evening. Thank you very much for your help!

reinstall AIX, I would never ever use a preinstalled AIX from a second hand buy

YOU WILL HAVE TO SEE WHAT IS IN
/etc/security/user

AS THIS RESTRICTS THE SYSTEM EVEN MORE
also have a look at
the /etc/security/login.cfg
make sure that Ldap is not configerd on this system
Best is to reinstall AIX as this will then belong to you