Ok, I'm an idiot....I forgot the super-user passwd on a new system I'm setting up for someone else. Is there a secret/backdoor way to boot in single user mode so I can delete the password (/etc/passwd)?

Had most everyting working great on a MSI K8NGM2-FID and DVICO RT gold card, but had to upgrade to latest nvidia drivers, upgrade to the latest alsa sound drivers and couldn't get the sensors working. The built-in 6150 works great with XvMC, though sometimes video freezes but can be correct by skip back or forward. The remote will not work, they changed from a USB one to one that connects thru their special cable that plugs into thier card (which allows power on/off control of computer).

Not sure if R5C7 corrects any of the above, suppose if there is no way to fix password, I'll try it...

Thx.

hold down the left shift key after post.

at the "lilo: " prompt put "linux init=/bin/sh"

after you log in remount / read/write like so:

mount -o remount,rw /

then just use pico to edit /etc/passwd like so:

root::root:/root:/bin/bash

Thanks, that did the trick. Haven't used pico yet, prefer vi...

you might appreciate this then..

cat /etc/passwd | sed s/root:.*:0:0:/root::0:0:/ > /etc/passwd

Nothing like a good ole line/stream editor

Yikes! Not recommended! There's a potential race condition there that could wipe out or corrupt the password file, it's much better to use a temporary file or the "edit in place" option than Gnu sed has. See the sed man page for more details.

I am a bit curious about why it works ;) it shouldn't, but for some reason with small files I get
away with it.. i don't think that was the case pre 2.4 kernels.

I just figured that one of the kernel maintainers was reading my mind when I was thinking about
what would happen if a snake ate its own tail..

Being able to "get away with it" sometimes is the nature of race conditions. The failure modes require that certain combinations of psuedo-random events occur. The really dangerous part is that because the cause and effect aren't clearly linked, after getting away with this kind of Russian roulette a few times, even smart people start thinking that it's "safe". Kind of like getting in the habit of running a red light at 4AM because "there's never anybody else on the road at this hour".