From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JdtWl-0005gb-Bh for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:44:19 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id EE38EE04A3; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:43:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.190]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 81F45E04A3 for ; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:43:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id f5so956640nfh.26 for ; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:43:07 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:message-id; bh=EjNik/CVBrDkB6dOsP4AZWLzxpC62KthSYDocW2FHMU=; b=q323MmbebZkEyyPKIiwhZ2h/q6DIXkZkQHAyRneoL4x8+AgJ0AOPdVKiyXY8dFUK6dviDSOY+56MlvEYBUzl6EYgGbJpAJ/4ujuGZSE//DwC1QUQxfttWx+lFFm92niGl1t9M4TxgusGFUhgPZrI6wiUI5GEGVhRgb5OZVMSyUU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:message-id; b=GpPYSPg1g51KPM3IBgUY2O9RjxcUy3HX3xo30Qubsaam0bVtI3AjqoFesQFDZEWzdzopOoCHrIetWxHk1LXRUZ0gIycZYRT2uFJBLcD5yoe8W8W8vAUSwdYKI7Ov43rJVFJe//NOKHD9HKKEgt9MTVyGbzeAjBdG5nZW1/CrRn8= Received: by 10.78.170.6 with SMTP id s6mr22679808hue.75.1206391387434; Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:43:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?10.0.0.3? ( [41.243.230.74]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 36sm6909812huc.12.2008.03.24.13.43.04 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:43:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Recovering root password Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:42:07 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9 References: <49bf44f10803241330r3b447b4bkde7a062c73905b94@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <49bf44f10803241330r3b447b4bkde7a062c73905b94@mail.gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200803242242.07792.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: bfa17306-5e28-46f1-bc68-138de79d0b29 X-Archives-Hash: 8ecaf34ca441ab117096b5f43972f63b On Monday 24 March 2008, Grant wrote: > I've revived an old Gentoo laptop, but I've forgotten the root > password. I remember the password to my user account and I can log > in there fine. Can I recover the root password? No, that would require undoing high-quality encryption schemes. Which is a good thing, otherwise your internet banking couldn't be safe (amongst other similar evils) What you can do is replace the root password with something else: Boot from any old LiveCD, mount your gentoo partitions somewhere, chroot into them as root and run 'passwd' If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the same process you used to install Gentoo in the first place :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list