IRIX 5.3 and resetting root password

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Mon Jun 28 15:03:39 2004

On Mon, 2004-06-28 at 18:02, Jochen Kunz wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:01:09 +0000
> Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Still no luck. I've now tried with and without the 'x' present in the
> > passwd file, and with and without the encrypted password string in the
> > shadow file.
> Mount the "locked" disk from a wotking IRIX of the same major version,
> do a chroot(1M) to it and type "passwd root"...

Problem there is that the system disk for which I do have full access is
only IRIX 4.0.5 - the 'new' system disk for which I don't have any
passwords is IRIX 5.3.

I just tried clearing the 'x' (indicating shadow password use) for the
guest account on the new disk and I couldn't even login using the guest
account when rebooting with the new drive as the system disk. That seems
to rule out it being some configuration somewhere which was simply
disallowing direct root login access.

So...

1) System is trying to use some authentication other than /etc/passwd
and /etc/shadow. What other authentication methods existed for IRIX 5.3?
If the system's trying to use some form of remote authentication then
naturally that's not going to work any more :-)

2) Some required library is missing for some reason on the new drive,
but it's not being reported in any meaningful fashion...

cheers

Jules
Received on Mon Jun 28 2004 - 15:03:39 BST