NCR Tower help : recovering root password

From: Patrick Rigney <patrick_at_evocative.com>
Date: Wed Sep 18 15:34:00 2002

> Now for the problem: I have no idea what any of the passwords are on the
> machine. Searching comp.os.unisys and comp.os.ncr bring no useful
> results. The only non-pasworded account on the machine (that I can find so
> far) seems to be 'startup'. Any ideas on how to 'break in' without an OS
> install floppy/tape?

Pat, many older *nix's allow you boot into single user mode without a
password, giving you a shell prompt on the system console. At that point,
/etc is probably mounted as part of /. You should be able to change or
surgically remove the password with passwd|ed|vi. If it has a boot prompt
on the way up, try entering "-s" or hitting "?". --Patrick
Received on Wed Sep 18 2002 - 15:34:00 BST