[mdlug] [WLUG] SuSE root breakin help needed

[Joe Landman]

Jay Nugent wrote:
> Greetings all,


>    Thanks Joe!  I was *so* relieved to see that LVM was not used.  And
> this got me onto the hard drive where I was then able to vi the
> /etc/passwd file and blank out the root password field.
> 
>    root::0:3::/:/bin/bash
> 
>    Rebooted, and at the login screen it refused to let me login to root 
> with a *blank* password :(

er....  you probably don't want to blow the password away ...

simpler methods

1) set up sudo access for a specific user, and add this line for user "jay"

	jay ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/su

To use this, do

	sudo su

after logging in as Jay.  No fuss, no muss.  Can be removed later.  You 
should set this up from a chroot'ed file system.

2) set up passwordless ssh into root for user "jay"

	ssh localhost -l root

   though you have to make sure root is allowed ssh access for this.

Both methods work well, we use them when setting up customer systems.


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Joseph Landman, Ph.D
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