[mdlug] [WLUG] SuSE root breakin help needed

[Robert Citek]

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Jay Nugent <jjn at nuge.com> wrote:
> Anyone know a way to generate the one-way password encryption?  Then I
> can vi /etc/password and edit in the 13 character string???  Seems to me
> there used to be a 'crypt' command or something similar...

One solution would be to use Knoppix (probably will work with other
live CDs, too):

1) boot into Knoppix
2) open a root terminal
3) mount the filesystem containing /etc/shadow
4) create a password.  For example,

# mkpasswd --hash=md5 foo
$1$7u0Y1cwB$OYtRpq0y1kM6U0dW3Bgh80

5) insert into the second field of /etc/shadow for root or other user
6) reboot
7) login as root using the above password, e.g. foo

Regards,
- Robert