Dear OSF managers,
Thank you all the people who respoded:
rem_at_MATH.AMS.ORG
mclaughl_at_nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
glidden <glidden_at_harvard.edu>
Brian 'Doc' O'Neill <oneill_at_cs.uml.edu>
Josie Young <young_at_nuc006.psc.sc.edu>
Ed Meirose <em_at_unx.dec.com>
<osf_at_xosfulsa.ulsa.mx>
UFPEL - CPMET <ufpelrm_at_eu.ansp.br>
"David M. Walters" <WALTERS_at_ad3100.ada.epa.gov>
glidden <glidden_at_harvard.edu>
Larry Griffith <larry_at_garfield.wsc.mass.edu>
Doug Gould <dgj_at_omega.rtpnc.epa.gov>
"Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-881-0646" <tpb_at_zk3.dec.com>
chris duschka <chris_at_vinfiz.mcclellan.af.mil>
"Schuhl, Robert" <robert.schuhl_at_ald-vt.de>
philip_at_uvo.dec.com
REGIS REMBADO - BOUYGUES TELECOM <rembado_r_at_decus.fr>
Hellebo Knut <Knut.Hellebo_at_nho.hydro.com>
sha na na <SSL_at_ALPHA.SUNQUEST.COM>
iwm_at_uvo.dec.com
"Lucien HERCAUD"_at_paribas.com
I received a lot of messages answering my question, I really
really appreciate it. Thank you very much. But I think my problem was
a severe problem, because the modifications that I did to the passwd
file didn't take effect, so I had to install the OS again. Even
though, I'll send you any ideas that I received, thanks again for
your help.
This was the original e-mail:
Dear OSF managers,
Today when I arrived to work I found that our two
DEC machines (1 VAX/VMS and 1 DEC OSF1) were down, in the >>>
prompt, I issued the command boot to make them boot. Everything
was fine, but after that, I tried to logon and I couldn't. It said
that the password is incorrect with all the accounts, and
also the root account. Days ago I have had exported the /etc from this
machine to another, now I mount /etc in the second machine and I can see
the whole information, I edited the /etc/passwd file to erase the
passwords from all users and to have access with no password
but the DEC OSF tell me the same thing:
login: rgonzale
Password:
Login incorrect
Wait for login retry ...
Login incorrect
login:
Why if I modified the /etc/passwd (exported from the DEC
and mounted in another machine) the modifications didn't
take effect, evenI exported it with root access.
I also restore the /etc/passwd file that I backed up
yesterday of the DEC machine and save it in the the mounted
subdirectory but it didn't take effect.
It's very urgent to me to have access to the DEC machine.
I'm very worried about it because someone is taking adventage
of it. Any suggestions or ideas will be appreciated a lot.
Answers:
It sounds like you have installed Enhanced Security.
read on. If not, please ignore the rest of this message.
If you cannot log in at all, you will have to halt the
machine and boot it up in single user mode. Once in single
user, you will need to mount / as read/write. To do that,
type mount -u / (which will update the mount point). Then
mount /usr. Then run /usr/sbin/secsetup to disable enhanced
security. Once the machine is back up not in enhanced security
mode, you should be able to login using the old password.
The encrypted passwords are in the /tcb/files/auth/<letter>
directories. That is why changing the /etc/passwd file did
not help you.
I hope this helps.
Bob Morse
Try vipw instead of "vi /etc/passwd" - the changes
won't stick unless vipw is used.
Hope this helps,
Steve McLaughlin
mclaughl_at_nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
It looks like you are running enhanced or C2 based security
on the OSF1 node, in which case modifying the /etc/passwd file
is not enough ... you need to get into the 'auth' database and
modify the entry there. Alternately the easiest thing to do
would be to boot the OSF1 node in single user mode, mount /usr
and /var then change root's password.
Mark
Long shot, but were there also passwd.pag and passwd.dir files in /etc? If
so, remove them...they may have been corrupted...
--
======================================================================
Brian O'Neill - Director of Computing, Computer Science (508) 934-3645
University of Massachusetts at Lowell <*> oneill_at_cs.uml.edu
"And the eighth deadly sin is PIZZA" - Jimmy Buffett, Bank of Bad Habits
hey rosy,
i had a similar problem just the other week. we found no other solution
but to
restore the password file from tape while in single-user mode (did you be
sure
to reboot after this step??), then logging in (as whomever), then changing
whatever passwords by hand. in our case, the password file had only been
copied
to another file for editing(for another purpose), leaving the original
unchanged. that day we had a crash(unrelated) and when the system was
rebooted,
noone could log in because the password file had vanished! think this is some
sort of bug...or something we're overlooking?...
hope this helps some
if i think of anything else, i'll let you know
josie
young_at_nuc006.psc.sc.ed
If you haven't gotten an answer yet, you can still
boot the machine up in single user and mount / as
read write and remove the encrypted password for
root. That's about all I can think of for now.
Bob Morse
System Administrator
American Mathematical Society
did you make the passwd file
mkpasswd /etc/passwd
this will update the passwd file after it's been modified
ed
to edit the /etc/passwd try with vipw command, this command regenerate
the shadow encriptation of passwords
Run 'mkpasswd /etc/passwd' to rebuild the hashed password file.
-----
Carlos A M dos Santos - Analista de Sistemas
Universidade Federal de Pelotas - Centro de Pesquisas Meteorologicas
Pelotas, RS, Brasil - e-mail: ufpelrm_at_eu.ansp.br
Just an idea. Sometimes the password file is
converted to a binary
file for faster access. do a
mkpasswd /etc/passwd
and see if that helps.
Once I changed a users shell and could not get
it to taake it
until i stumble onto this.
Also the command "vipw" will let you edit your
passwd file and do
a mkpasswd automatically. vipw uses the editor
defined by the
EDITOR environment variable. If none is set it
will use vi. I use
edt as my main editor and this set by the
envoronment variable
in the korn shell
EDITOR=edt
export EDITOR
I know you do not get prompted for the old passwd at the base level of
security, and if I remember correctly you do not get prompted at the
enhanced level either, after changing the passwd though, you may have to
rebuild the auth databases ....
Mark
Mark E. Glidden
Harvard University
Office of Information Technology
10 Ware Street Cambridge MA
(617) 496-9266
Received on Mon Jun 03 1996 - 22:02:13 NZST