Recently, the root pass expired on a Solaris box. And then, i can't log into the system anymore.....Below are two issues i met:
1. I tried to login the system via telnet and ssh. Only the ssh prompt me to set a new password. The system only told me that the pass is expired and turn it off during the telnet session. Is there any setting that can turn on this prompt for the telnet session?

2. not sure whether my system configured with NIS or PAM, we need add the parameter "-r repository" to the command "passwd". Otherwise the system will fail. Similar issue i also met during i try to set the new password at ssh prompt. I suppose that maybe it because that the ssh only call "passwd", without the needed parameter, isn't it? Is there anyway that i can update this setting? the ssh server is openSSH.

Sorry for such a long description, as I try to present it clearly. Please provide your suggestion, thx in adv.

What I do know is that you can have ssh and telnet both exist on the same system, but the reason we use ssh is because we don't want to use telnet, by default telnet is not disabled automatically after installing ssh so we have to manually vi the file /etc/inet/inetd.conf and "#" it off so the in.telnetd will not work

- btw you need to be root to do any editing for inetd.conf


But If you cannot access to root due to password aging then that's a different issue.

If you really really cannot access to system as root then probably the way to get back in is to do a stop-a to force the system down into ok prompt level, do a boot cdrom -s (os media)


mount your OS disk

vi /a/etc/passwd and shadow files, add in a new entry with id '0'

umount;manually fsck all the partitions; try to boot up again.

I'm hesitant here to suggest using stop-a to force a system down If you are not administrator and unsure what I'm talking about pls consult your administrator.