if you cannot login anymore via console, try to mount the disk to another system understanding this filesystem, then simply change /etc/shadow (on the mounted disk!) and remove the password there
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Question
root password expired
Experts Exchange:
I try to su to root and get:
Password for user 'root' has expired - use passwd(1) to update it
This is Solaris 9. Nsswitch.conf is files ldap on passwd and group. /etc/default/login disallows root logins. Even though I know the root password it will not let me su to root and change the expired password.
Please advise.
Trav
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Answers
why can't you just treat it like a lost password?
Go ahead and try something like this:
Stop sweating :-)
Grab a Solaris cdrom and put it in your cdrom drive
When feasible, press Stop+a
At the 'ok' prompt, run "boot cdrom -s"
cd /tmp
mkdir /tmp/foo
mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /tmp/foo (where c0t0d0s0 is the location of your root drive)
cp /tmp/foo/etc/shadow /tmp/foo/etc/shadow.oops
vi /tmp/foo/etc/shadow and delete the encrypted password on the root account
cd /; umount /tmp/foo
Reboot, login with root and no password, and reset your root password
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by: net_sec_guruPosted on 2005-07-21 at 10:32:37ID: 14495053
Log in via console and reset the password
I think it's dangerous to have password aging on root. Root should not be logged into regularly so it's difficult to know when the next time it'll log in. So I have a policy where root is to be changed but don't turn password aging on for that account.