I lost my superuser password for Suse 9.1 How can I reset it?

Assuming you never made any other users or passwords...
btw, SU does not mean super user, if that helps                                  ;-)

Why waste time downloading a live CD just to reset a password?

..because sometimes the grub menu is password protected so you can't boot into single mode....and I'm not familiar enough with the Suse recovery process to talk people through it. I know that with a live CD, I can talk someone through the complete process without having to set up a confirmatory test setup.

Of course other people with greater experience may choose a different approach. I don't use Suse, but I'm confident that I can reset the password using a live CD. (Of course the Suse recovery/install disc ...if they still have it?....is effectively a live CD..but we don't know that they have one available - In fact the Q is particularly sparse)

In addition, it is a process that hasn't already been mentioned - This is supposed to be a collaborative forum after all:)

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On friday I went into logged into single user mode and changed my root password. I didn't think it worked because when I logged in with SU account, it said incorrect password. I realized that root and SU are 2 different accounts. I then logged into root and I got in. I seems that su and root have the same access. So it seems I can do everything I need to do under the root account. Can I change the SU password under root? Thanks for all the help.

To change the SU passwd under root:

passwd SU

Enter passwd twicce as requested by the prompts.

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Hi,

To change the password of SU it is:

passwd SU

One question tho why do you have a user called: "SU"? as it is abit confussing with the su command ;)

The SU account is built in to the Suse box. I tried to change passwd SU but it comes up as unknown user.

Just follow the instructions to log in as root (using your original install cd and some kernel command line options as you have) then just issue the passwd command with NO ID.

passwd

root@sv00-1029:~# passwd
Changing password for root
Enter the new password (minimum of 5, maximum of 127 characters)
Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers.
New password:


SU is an alias to a group setting and under no circumstances should it be an actual userid installed to the server....

phishbone4 > SU but it comes up as unknown user
xDamox >      with the su command ;)
Try man?

Hi,

I think you have been confused su is used to run a shell with substitute user and group IDs. So say
you were logged in as damian and wanted to become the users phishbone4 you would type the following command:

su phishbone4

This would then ask for the phishbone4 users password. Now if you see something similar to:

su -

This just means that you are changing to root user and the dash means invoke root's paths e.g. $PATH

Now when you logged into single user mode and you were root you needed to type the following:

passwd

Then it would of allowed you to change your password.

If you (as root):

cat /etc/passwd | grep -i su

you'll see whether su, SU, sU or Us exists as a user on your system.

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Hi,

SU is not a user on his system look:

>The SU account is built in to the Suse box. I tried to change passwd SU but it comes up as unknown user.

When it says user unknown this means that it was unable to find the user in the /etc/passwd

I'm a newbie with Suse. All I know that is I logged in as SU, it give me administrative access.

Hi,

Could you type the following commands and display their outputs:

1) whoami

2) id

su can be convenient way to use a shell to invoke a different working environment by switching users

When in doubt, go to horses mouth. In this case, it appears Suse is primarily installed with a GUI that has two initial entries for the user: the ID and password. This makes it 'easier' to use than the command line interface (CLI), which can be any of a number of shells in the Unix world (although mainly only three choices).

> it give me administrative access

Define Administrative.

Many systems will have GUIs for a lot of those tasks.

> I'm a newbie with Suse.

Then, try also the RTFM method, to get some online documentation, for example, go here, there is, for example, a 10 MB file with a few PDFs you can read offline (sample from there follows link):

http://www.novell.com/documentation/

2.6.1 root Password
+root is the name of the superuser, the administrator of the system. Unlike
regular users, which may or may not have permission to do certain
things on the system, root has unlimited power to do anything: change
the system configuration, install programs, and set up new hardware. If
users forget their passwords or have other problems with the system, root
can help. The root account should only be used for system administration,
maintenance, and repair. Logging in as root for daily work is rather risky:
a single mistake could lead to many system files being irretrievably lost.
Figure 2.12 shows the relevant dialog. For verification purposes, the password
for root must be entered twice. Do not forget the root password. It
cannot be retrieved later.

                                          <more>
2.8 Graphical Login
SUSE LINUX is now installed. You can start right away without passing
the login procedure if you checked automatic login in the local user administration
module. If not, the graphical +Login window shown in Figure
2.17 on the next page is displayed on your screen. Enter a previously
determined user name and password to log in to the system.

2.6.5 Creating Local User Accounts
When user accounts are created locally, any data related to user accounts
(name, login, password, and so on) is stored and managed on this host.
Linux is an operating system that allows several users to work on the same
system at the same time. Each user needs a +user account to log in to the
system. By having user accounts, the system gains a lot in terms of security.
Regular users cannot change or delete files needed for the system to work
properly. Similarly, the personal data of a given user cannot be modified,
viewed, or tampered with by other users. Each user can set up his own
working environment and always find it unchanged when logging back
in.

A user account can be created using the dialog shown in Figure 2.15. After
entering the first name and last name, specify the user name (login). If you
cannot think of a suitable user name, click ‘Suggestion’ for the system to
generate one automatically.

Finally, enter a password for the user. Reenter it for confirmation (to ensure
that you did not type something else by mistake). The user name tells the
system who a user is and the password is used to verify this identity.

Caution
Remember both your user name and the password because they are
needed each time you log in to the system.
Caution

To provide effective security, a password should be between five and eight
characters long. The maximum length for a password is 128 characters.
However, if no special security modules are loaded, only the first eight
characters are used to discern the password. Passwords are case-sensitive.
Special characters like umlauts are not allowed. Other special characters
(7-bit ASCII) and the digits 0 to 9 are allowed.

Two options are available for local users:

‘Receive system messages via e-mail’
Checking this box sends the user messages created by the system services.
These are usually only sent to root, the system administrator.
This option is useful for the prominently-used user account, because
it is highly recommended to log in as root only in special cases.

‘Automatic login’ This option is only available if KDE is used as the default
desktop. It automatically logs the current user into the system
when it starts. This is mainly useful if the computer is operated by
only one user.

Note
No authentication is performed during system start-up with automatic
login. Do not check this option for systems containing
sensitive data or to which other people have access.
Note

SunBow > Reinstall should work
yurisk > PS And ignore the reinstall advice, this would destroy all your data when there's absolutely
no need for such damage.
phishbone4 > I'm a newbie with Suse.

Comment: Newbies usually do not have an abundance of critical data yet, and probably rushed through an initial install, if in fact they were present during installation. There is no man command, for example, prior to install. Therefor, when going through an install a second time, one may be a little better learned, and notice some item choices with better understanding. This leads to a more secure system that ends up better satisfying needs of the individual installer.

Unix, especially linux, is also more adept than windows for preserving data during a reinstall due to the ways they handle partitions and formatting, for example.