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Author Unix root password
mrounds

2004-01-29, 6:37 am

I just received shipment of several Sun Blade 100s from a now defunct
project. The problem is that I have no idea what the root user names
and passwords are. Is there a way to log in without having this
information? Thanks for your help.
Michael Vilain

2004-01-29, 7:35 am

In article <6d078c36.0401291205.228dd28f@posting.google.com>,
michael.s.rounds@boeing.com (mrounds) wrote:
quote:

> I just received shipment of several Sun Blade 100s from a now defunct
> project. The problem is that I have no idea what the root user names
> and passwords are. Is there a way to log in without having this
> information? Thanks for your help.



Not without a Solaris install CD. Do these systems have CDROM drives?
Otherwise, you'll have to buy one to use for booting or setup a boot
server on the network and boot the systems over the net.

Once you're running the installation, break out and mount the local
disk. Edit the password file to clear root's password.

But, you really don't know what's on these systems. If they were being
re-tasked to _my_ group, they wouldn't be put into service without a
complete OS reload and patched to current levels.

YMMV.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...



Dave Hinz

2004-01-29, 1:35 pm

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:05:01 -0800, "Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net>" <> wrote:
quote:

> But, you really don't know what's on these systems. If they were being
> re-tasked to _my_ group, they wouldn't be put into service without a
> complete OS reload and patched to current levels.



Absolutely - if you've inherited systems that you have to keep going as
is, that's one thing (put the disk drive into a system, mount it, and
go from there), but if they're boxes you're going to use for other than
what they were doing before, by all means a full wipe and reinstall is
the only way to proceed. Even if the previous sysadmin was a Unix Guru
Extrordinaire, you (a) don't know that for sure, (b) will be burned by
something in the config, and (c) won't know what exactly you have in the
first place.

Inheriting systems without documentation is a mixed bag, you never know
what's going to come out of it.

Dave Hinz

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