Friday at 4:15pm, I logged in as root on the console, received a warning
message that my password was to expire on 2/26 and figured 'why wait?' I
promptly brought up the DailyAdmin ICON group and started up the Account
Manager ICON, choose the root account, extented the password lifetime, and
change the password clicking apply and ok after each transaction.
I was interrupted with a 5 minute phone call and when I returned to the
console, my database, Progress, was crashing, and all the new and old
processes were dying with a 440 memory fault: a memory image file is created.
I couldn't do anything because even the root account was generating these
errors so I halted and rebooted the system. It booted, but major portions
on the system weren't starting up and when I logged in as root, I didn't
have superuser access.
After many panic calls to DEC and 90 minutes later, without any help I
atleast determined what had happened. The dxaccounts program had not only
altered the password and password lifetime, it changed the UID to the next
new user UID in the system, which in my case was 228. My root was no longer
SUPERUSER! With enhanced security, and two people finally on the phone from
DEC (2 hours later after logging a critical call), they cannot help me fix
the password because of the C2 Enhanced Security and advise that I restore
my root and usr file systems. They told me I could try disabling the C2,
and then reenabling it, but that it still may not fix the system. Not a
very solid, reassuring set of choices...
Not too happy about DEC's solution, I proceeded with the file system restore
and was up and running another an hour later. DEC tells me that 4.0b should
prevent this from happening, but I cannot take the time to upgrade to 4.0b
before my root account password goes stale on Wednesday.
How can I change the root password without the OS update and without
repeating Fridays disaster?
Any and all help is appreciated!
Barry Treahy
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Barry Treahy, Jr. Email: treahy_at_allianceelec.com
Vice President Phone: (602) 483-9400 x325
Information Technologies FAX: (602) 443-3898
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Alliance Electronics, Inc. * 7550 East Redfield Road * Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Semiconductor & Computer System Sales WWW:
http://www.allianceelec.com
Phone: (800) 608-9494 Email: sales_at_allianceelec.com
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... but its a DRY HEAT!
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Received on Mon Feb 24 1997 - 17:30:07 NZDT