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Resetting Passwords with SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd

By James Stanger

If youre locked out of your Linux or Windows system, a handy Live

Linux troubleshooting distro might be all you need to get back in. Well

show you how to pick the lock with SystemRescueCd.

Issue151/2013

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ing%20Passwords%20with%20SystemRescueCd&description=If%20you%E2%80%99re%20locked%20out%20of%20your%20Linux%20or%20Windows%20system%2C%20a%20handy%20Live%20Linux%20troubleshooting%20distro%20might%20be%20all%20you%20need%20to%20get%20back%20in.%20We%E2%80%99ll%20show%20you%20how%20to%20pick%20the%20lock%20with%20SystemRescueCd.http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2013/151http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2013/151http://shop.linuxnewmedia.com/us/eh30151.htmlhttp://shop.linuxnewmedia.com/us/


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Getting locked out of your Linux or Windows system is a frustrating

experience. These days, not being able to log in to your system might

be worse than getting locked out of your car; at least with a car you can

get a ride home or contact a locksmith to get back in. However, if youre

locked out of your Linux system, youre really not going to find a

competent ready-made service to come to your rescue.

But never fear: The open source community offers some powerful tools

for helping you reset passwords. For instance, the GRUB and LILO boot

managers offer some recovery options. If you need something more

versatile, the SystemRescueCd disk project provides a number of tools

for resetting passwords and recovering your system. SystemRescueCd

doesnt just reset passwords in your Ubuntu, Red Hat, or Linux Mint

system: It can also help you recover access to your Windows computer.

GRUBs System Recovery Mode

Sometimes you dont need a specialized tool like SystemRescueCd to

get back on your system. The traditional Unix/Linux single-user mode

might be all you need. If your system uses the GRUB bootloader, you

can enter Linux single mode through GRUBs Recovery Mode and boot

menu options. (An equivalent process is also available for the LILO

bootloader; see the box titled Using LILO.)

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Recovery Mode is available to you no matter what Linux flavor you are

using (e.g., Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, Red Hat Enterprise Linux

6, Fedora 16, or Linux Mint 12).

When using GRUB to enter Linux single-user mode, first, make sure you

have removed any and all external drives or connections. More than

once, Ive confused the issue by trying to mount external USB drives

and other devices when I was working to recover my primary hard disk.

When youre sure youve stripped things down to the bare bones, bootyour system so the GRUB menu is showing and choose the kernel into

which you want to boot. Usually, you will boot into the first kernel listed

on the menu, but you can make sure youre booting into the latest

version by reading the numbers the higher the number, the more

current. You can choose the kernel by simply hitting the Up or Down

arrow key.

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components.

Alpha Version of Fedora 19Released

Fedora developers release the

first alpha version of Fedora 19,

known as Schrdingers Cat, for

general testing. The final

release is expected in July 2013.

ack 2.0 Released

ack is a grep-like, command-line

tool that has been optimized for

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SUSE Studio 1.3 Released
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Once youve selected the kernel version, press the e key to edit the

entry. In the simple text editor, choose the line starting with the word

kernel(usually the second line on your screen). After selecting the

kernel line, press the e key to edit the kernel entry. Append the

following to the end of the kernel line:

S

Yes, just use the letterS, without quotes. You can also use the word

Single without quotes.

When you press Enter, you will exit the editor and be placed back at the

GRUB menu. The menu will now have the modified kernel line (e.g., the

line with the capital S at the end).

To boot into Linux single-user mode, press the b key. Youll know youve

entered Linux single-user mode once you see a simple root prompt,

denoted by the hash mark (#). You wont see any other information on

the prompt as you normally would (e.g., the username, system name, or

current directory).

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Usually, you can simply reset the password using the passwdcommand

at this point (see the Warning: Dont Misuse This Information box).

However, depending on how your system is configured, you might need

to mount some partitions: /proc/, /var/, or the root directory itself (/):

# mount -t proc proc /proc

# mount -o remount,rw /

Once youre at the prompt, enter

passwd

and press Enter. You will be prompted to enter a new password, so goahead and do so and press Enter to confirm your choice. Next, you can

reboot the system with the rebootcommand, log in to the root account,

and change any other passwords as necessary.

Rescuing with SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd is a Live Linux distribution similar to Knoppix. The

distribution is designed for system troubleshooting, which means it lets

you:

change user passwords in Linux or Windows systems, including the

passwords for the root and Administrator accounts;

check the integrity of existing partitions;

create new partitions or format existing partitions using the parted

tool or the graphical equivalent, GParted (Figure 1); and

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recover files from unbootable Linux or Windows systems.

Figure 1: With GParted, you can create, edit, and format partitions.

Of course, most of the troubleshooting tools found on SystemRescueCd

are available for other Linux distributions as well.

The basic procedures described in this article will work with other LiveLinux troubleshooting distros, although the details might vary. In this

case, Im using SystemRescueCd as an example of how to reset

passwords by booting the system from a Linux Live disk.
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I should add

that

SystemRescueCd uses the Zsh command shell by default, which could

be confusing for users who are accustomed to the Bash shell. Every

once in a while when using SystemRescueCd, I get a funky error

message that tells me I am using the wrong shell.

If you are not familiar with Zsh and would prefer to work in Bash, you

can easily change the shell from Zsh to Bash by entering the following

exportcommand:

export SHELL=/bin/bash

Once youve downloaded the SystemRescueCd image from the project

website, you can use any appropriate tool to burn the image to a CD or
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a Flash drive. See the Using UNetbootin sidebar for more on burning

the image to a USB stick.

Figure 2: Using UNetbootin to create a SystemRescueCd USB boot disk.

Resetting Passwords

Sometimes your system is damaged in a way that wont let you reset the

password using Linux single-user mode. To reset a Linux-based

password in SystemRescueCd, start by booting to the SystemRescueCd

Live system.

To find out which disk partition contains the /etcdirectory, use fdisk.


9/17

df d mi b PRO i Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

The /etc partition is usually on the root (/) drive. See the command and

output in Listing 1.

Listing 1: Listing Partitions with fdisk

01#fdisk-lDeviceBoot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sda1 63 144584 72261 de DellUtility/dev/sda2 145408 4339711 2097152 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda3 * 4339712 165822455 80741372 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda4 165822930 234436544 34306807+ 5 Extended

/dev/sda5

165822993231528779

32852893+

83

Linux

/dev/sda6 231528843 234436544 1453851 82 Linuxswap/Solaris

In Listing 1, the /dev/sda5directory is the main partition, as revealed by

its size and partition type, so you will need to mount this partition. To do

so, first create a directory that will act as a mountpoint:

mkdir /mnt/bootdir

Now, mount the Linux partition to your SystemRescueCd partition:

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/bootdir

The chrootcommand lets you access it easily:


10/17

df di b PRO i Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API

chroot /mnt/system

Now, you can reset your password using the passwdcommand,

passwd

where newpassword is the new password you want to use.

The umountcommand unmounts the partition, after which you can

reboot. Once you log back in to your troubled Linux system, youll be

able to use the root account with the new password youve specified.


11/17

df di b PRO i A d l ? T t th HTML t PDF API

Mounting Disks

Once you have accessed the system with SystemRescueCd, you dont

have to go stampeding to the passwdcommand and then rush out

again. If necessary, you can mount drives and edit key files. In fact,

once you enter Linux single-user mode, you can edit and browse

through directories or make changes to critical text files.

For example, instead of using the passwdcommand, you could edit the

/etc/shadowfile directly and remove the password information. To do

this, mount the partition that contains the /etcdirectory this is usually

the root partition and enter the command:

# mount -rw / /mnt/partition

If necessary, create the /mnt/partition directory. Once youve mounted

the /partition, simply use vi, Emacs, or another text editor to access the

/etc/shadowfile and edit the file so that the user account of your choice

(e.g., the root account) no longer contains the hashed password

information. Then, unmount this partition, reboot, and access your Linux

system in a standard session. At this point, youll be able to log in to the

account without specifying a password.

Resetting GRUB Boot Password Protection

But, you ask, what if you have password-protected GRUB and have

forgotten that password? Isnt it impossible to get past this password to

enter single-user mode? With SystemRescueCd, you can mount the

/boot partition, or the root (/) partition, as discussed above.

To begin, switch to the /boot/grub/ directory and copy the unedited file


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to the same directory under a new name:

cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst_bak

This is an important step, just in case you edit the file incorrectly. In a

text editor, edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and look for the following

line:

password -md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/

Now, comment out the password entry and save your changes. Then,

unmount the directory and reboot your system. Once youve taken

these steps, youll be able to bypass the GRUB password.

Resetting Passwords on a Windows System

You can use the tools on your disk to boot into a Windows partition as

well. Suppose you want to boot into Windows and change the password

for a user account.

To begin, boot into SystemRescueCd and using fdisk to list existing

partitions like this:

fdisk -l

Next, look for an NTFS partition that appears to be the Windows system

partition. For example, you might see a line that reads:

/dev/sda3 (NTFS)


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Once you have found the correct NTFS drive (Ill assume it is

/dev/sda3), use the ntfs command:

ntfs -3g /dev/sda3 /mnt/windows -o force

This command mounts the NTFS drive on /dev/sda3 onto your local

/mnt/windows/drive. If this drive isnt available, create it as follows:

mkdir /mnt/windows

Once youve mounted the NTFS drive onto the /mnt/windows/drive,

change to it:

cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config

Now, you are ready to use the chntpwcommand to list the Windows

accounts in the SAM database:

chntpw -l SAM

The result of the preceding command will be a list of user account

names.

Next, you can select the account name that requires a password reset.

In this case, Ill assume you want to change the account of a user

named James Stanger:

chntpw -u "James Stanger"


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Once you issue the above command, you will see a menu of various

options. To reset the password, press 1 and Enter. You will be asked to

confirm that you want to reset this account, so press the ykey and

Enter. The account is now reset.

To reboot, enter the rebootcommand and press Enter. Youll find you

can get into your account (e.g., James Stanger) without entering a

password.

SystemRescueCd makes it pretty easy. The preceding steps will simply

change the password. If you want to get full read-write access to a

Windows disk, you can enter the command

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

and then youll be able to mount the disk and copy or even write files to

it. I would recommend, however, simply copying files from your Windows

system; writing to another filesystem is always fairly r isky, especially one

that isnt based on Linux. Once you have mounted your Windows drive,

you can then simply navigate through it using the cdcommand as you

would a Linux system more or less.

Conclusion

Now you know how to give your system passwords the boot. Although

you might be able to reset your passwords in Linux single-user mode,

accessed through the GRUB (or LILO) bootloader, SystemRescueCd

offers another, more versatile alternative.

I suppose its worth reiterating


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I suppose it s worth reiterating

here that youre not supposed to

use these tools for malicious

purposes. And by malicious, I

mean youre not supposed to use

these tools to break into

someone elses system or view

information and data that isnt meant for you. If I need to spell this out

further, I suggest you get out of techie mode for a bit and take a good

ethics class. At any rate, SystemRescueCd is a powerful tool. Enjoy

using it responsibly!

Info

[1]UNetbootin

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