On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 18:05 +0000, Anne Harriss wrote:
> Please could you tell me how I find what is my "Admin address" to log into
> these pages?
>
> More seriously, I have a problem. My son installed linux Fedora, and wrote
> down the root password down for me...except that he made a mistake in
> writing it down, and so I can't download updates, etc. OK, so I need to
> change the password, and he told me how to do that. Except that when I
> write the new one, the respons in the Grub command is that it needs
> authenticating. Well, I don't understand what THAT means. What do I do?
>
I will take a stab at this...
Others will tell us both if I have it correct.
You son used a DVD or CDs to install Fedora Linux.
If he used CDs, I would find the recovery CD, and boot that up.
If he used the DVD, I would boot it up, and select the recovery option.
To select the rescue option, when booting up from the DVD, type:
linux rescue
Answer the questions for choosing the language and keyboard.
Do not start the network interfaces.
Let it try to mount your Linux installation.
It will say something like "The rescue environment will now attempt to
find your Linux installation and mount it under the
directory /mnt/sysimage...."
It should, hopefully, find your Linux installation and mount it
under /mnt/sysimage.
As it suggests, do:
chroot /mnt/sysimage
Type:
passwd
It will say "Changing password for user root.
New UNIX password: <type in new desired password>
Retype new UNIX password: <type in same password again>
Password: all authentication tokens updated successfully."
Type:
exit
Type again:
exit
Take the DVD out.
Boot up your system. You should now know the root password.
Your son probably set the grub password too.
Boot up your machine. Log in to root.
Type the following:
grub-md5-crypt
It will say:
Password: <type in the password you want>
Retype password: <type in the same password again>
It will print out a string. You will want to copy/paste this string.
Edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst
If there is a line starting with password, delete that line.
In the file, around the line, timeout= or the line hiddenmenu, enter
password --md5 string that was printed by grub-md5-crypt
This string is the hashed password and must be entered exactly.
Reboot your machine and test the grub password.
> A. Harriss
>
>
