UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

We recently terminated a developer at my place of employment who created scripts on a windows server (that i do not have access to) that invoke FTP sessions on my UnixWare 7.1.1 servers.

I need to know the password that is being used. Does anyone know of a good password crack?

More information required.

Warning: this thread might be red-flagged due to possible misinterpretations of that which will be discussed. It will most likely be deleted right off the bat, but who knows.

What is the problem? Find a colleague who does have access to the windows box and look at the script.

I would normally do that, but unfortunately that's not a possibiity at the moment.


The problem is that if I change the password to this account, it will adversely affect the FTP sessions spawned from that Windows box. That MAY interupt services that we provide to our customers.

I want to be able to change the password back in case that happens, since I cannot access the other server.

Well according to our rules:

"These are not hacker boards so hacker related posts will be promptly deleted or moderated."

So we are not going to help you with cracking a password. The only reason that I think of for an immediate need to know would be to give the password to another user. If that is the case, you could set up an equivalent account. Different uname name and password. Same uid, gid, home directory and shell.

Hmmm... looks like you edited your post while I was posting.

Copy the /etc/password and /etc/shadow entries for this user. If you change the encrypted password back to the original, you restore the password.

I use this technique to copy a user's password from one system to another...without ever knowing the password.

Yes, I've already copied both files in case I have to do that. Since our company is currently under a security audit, I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone and find any weak passwords...

Fair enough. Thanks.