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Full Discussion: Failed to recover root password in Solaris 10 on Sparc CPU Sun Ultra10
Operating Systems Solaris Failed to recover root password in Solaris 10 on Sparc CPU Sun Ultra10 Post 302625577 by fromtexas0 on Wednesday 18th of April 2012 01:58:41 AM
Old 04-18-2012
Question Failed to recover root password in Solaris 10 on Sparc CPU Sun Ultra10
Failed to recover lost root password for Solaris SunSparc
(On Sun Ultra10 - SPARC CPU Hardware, not x86 Intel CPU nor x64 AMD CPU)
This Sun Ultra10 workstation comes with an old 6-in wafer probing station purchased from a Surplus equipment vendor.
Computer: Sun Ultra 5/10 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-Iii 440MHz). Sparc10 with UPA creative 3D graphics card and CDROM driver, Sun Type 5C keyboard/mouse. Sun Monitor. Solaris 10 SunOS. Solaris 10 installation CD. Unknown root password.
Here is the procedure that I followed in an attempt to recover the root password.
  1. Turn on SUN UltraSparc 10 and load Solaris 10 Installation CD
  2. Reboot Machine with CD inside CDROM drive
  3. Hit “Stop A” on keyboard during boot to get to the OK prompt
  4. To boot computer into single user mode, I typed “boot cdrom -s” at ok.
    1. ok boot cdrom -s
  5. Once booted off the CDROM, it showed
    1. INIT: SINGLE USER MODE
    2. #
    3. # mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /a (to look for password shadow file)
    4. # cat /a/etc/shadow
· root:xxxxxx:6445:::::::
· daemon:NP:6445:::::::
· ....
    1. # vi /a/etc/shadow (to remove xxxxx between root and 6445)
    2. :wq! to save and quit out of vi
    3. # cat /a/etc/shadow (to check shadow file after editing)
· root::6445:::::::
· daemon:NP:6445:::::::
· ....
    1. #umount /a (unmount device at /a)
    2. #pwd
    3. #/tmp/root
It looks all good so far. But my trouble starts from here: the computer is still asking for root password at boot!!!
  1. To boot into single user mode again to reset root password
    1. # boot ok -s
    2. boot: not found
  2. I then tried
    1. #boot -s
    2. boot: not found
  3. I then tried
    1. #boot
    2. boot: not found
  4. I then open the CD drive and took Solaris 10 CD out
    1. #reboot
  5. Sun UltraSparc 10 went into normal boot sequence. The typical CDE login screen showed up. Welcome Solaris user10
    1. Please enter user name: root <enter>
    2. Please enter password: <enter>
    3. It showed: login incorrect; please try again
  6. I then tried
    1. Please enter user name: <enter>
    2. Please enter password: <enter>
    3. It showed: login incorrect; please try again
  7. I don't understand why it was still looking for root password since I have already removed root password string in the shadow file!!!
  8. I then went through the above step1-4 to boot into SINGLE USER MODE, to change root password
    1. INIT: SINGLE USER MODE
    2. #passwd
    3. passwd (SYSTEM): password database busy. Try again later. Permission denied.
  9. I then tried
    1. #passwd root
    2. passwd (SYSTEM): password database busy. Try again later. Permission denied.
  10. So far none of boot and passwd commands worked for me. Any advice?


Note that many Solaris systems may have mirrored volumes, a volume manager or other method of copying the full filesystem. If this is the case these instructions will need to be followed for both volumes, otherwise corruption can easily occur.
Does it mean that there is another shadow file inside /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 besides /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0?
 

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