Solaris 8 password recovery

[newyorkny]

Friends,

I have recently become interested in using a Solaris8 server that I've had lying around for a couple of years. I think it goes without saying that I've long since forgotten the password.

I am fairly well-acquainted with the process of booting from CD into single-use mode, using vi to rewrite etc/password and all of that.

Question: Solaris 10 is the only version of Sol. that I can lay my paws on. Can I use this version to boot to a prompt and do all the other fun stuff to get past the password problem?

Thanks in advance.

NY

 

[marrow]

Look at FAQ's -> FAQ60-1568 it will tell you how to bypass the passwd

 

[newyorkny]

Thanks for the reference.

It doesn't happen to mention if I can use Solaris10 to bypass the password on a Solaris8 box, though.

I assume that I can. Any other thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[marrow]

If you are able to stop the system i.e. via the Stop and A
Keys - then you should be able to kick-off a new system build for Solaris10 as follows
> boot cdrom

However if you have a mirrored system (meta databases)- it may not let you do so until mirrors are broken - but try it and see.

 

[newyorkny]

Thanks. This is a very plain-vanilla install, so I don't see any reason STOP-a wouldn't work here.

Have a great weekend.

 

[Annihilannic]

Yes, you can boot off a Solaris 10 CD to rescue your Solaris 8 system, all you need is something that is capable of mounting the root filesystem (UFS presumably) so you can edit the shadow password file. Probably best to boot single off the CD-ROM to avoid starting the installation... the FAQ probably says that anyway.

Annihilannic.

 

[harris79]

I have modified FAQ60-1568 so try to make it clear that you can recover the password with a different Solaris version CD than that running on the server.

Steve

Steve

 

[Annihilannic]

Ugh, not boot single... boot -s. More Linux creeping in!!

Annihilannic.