[Tfug] Cracking a root password?

[Bexley Hall]

--- Rich <r-lists at studiosprocket.com> wrote:

> On Sep 12, 2007, at 4:58 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:
> 
> > The "tried and true" scheme for even *nasty* UN*X
> > boxen (e.g., Solaris -- that won't even let you
> > *into* single user mode without root's
> > credentials) is to boot off a CD (or another
> > "system" disk) and overwrite /etc/passwd et al.
> > with a known /etc/passwd.
> If you have access to the hardware, you own it.
> 
> However, if you don't know how to own it, you're at
> the mercy of the  
> last sysadmin. For example, password protected BIOS,
> OpenFirmware,  

There are ways around many of these (e.g., many
BIOS's have trapdoors; others rely on CMOS to
store the password; etc.).

> etc. will stop you being able to boot off other
> media, but whip out  
> that disk and stuff it in a box where you have root,
> and you're away.

Yup.  I am a big fan of external disk drives for
that very reason!  It is *so* much easier to
*physically* mount a drive on a different machine
to do some things (e.g., without having to rely
on that original machine being able to mount
the drive itself!)
 
> > Now, if what you are *really* asking is "what did
> > the other guy *use* as his password, that's a
> > different problem to solve!  :>
> Yeah, just gimme a big enough cluster and 67
> years...
> 
> Or I'll guess it was "p at ssw0rd". Gee, the stories I
> could tell and won't...

I always thought it was "qwerty"...


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