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From: roberto@keltia.frmug.fr.net (Ollivier Robert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: change the super user password
Date: 31 May 1994 19:43:46 +0200
Organization: A Happy FreeBSD-current Usenet Site
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <2sft10$12c@keltia.frmug.fr.net>
References: <2s5rfj$j90@imladris.frmug.fr.net> <D> <1994May31.081353.5519@news.qut.edu.au>
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In article <1994May31.081353.5519@news.qut.edu.au>,
Babak Mohajerin <b.mohajerin@qut.edu.au> wrote:
>I have received a 486 pc running NetBSD without the superuser
>password. I tried to change it by going to single user mode and edit
>/etc/passwd and /etc/master.passwd. Althought I was able to do that, I
>couldn't log in as a superuser without a password entry. I wander if
>there is another file which has too be editied as well?
All the flavours of BSD use shadow passwords which are stored in
/etc/master.passwd and not in /etc/passwd (/etc/passwd is here for
compatibility in fact, almost nothing in the system use it directly).
The vipw(8) and passwd(1) commands, which you *must* use to edit user and
password entries run the pwd_mkdb(8) command which build two databases:
/etc/pwd.db and /etc/spwd.db. The former is without the passwords.
The library routines getpwent(3) all use the database files to get user
informations not the files themselves.
Therefore, if you edit the /etc/master.passwd manually (something you
should *not* do except with vipw(8)), you must do the following:
[ensure nobody is trying to log in]
cd /etc
/bin/cp master.passwd ptmp
/usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb -p ptmp
rm -f ptmp
Now /etc/master.passwd is a copy of /etc/ptmp, /etc/passwd is an old v7
password file (for clients not using getpwent(3) routines) and the two
databases have been built properly.
------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the beginning of the pwd_mkdb(8) manpage :
PWD_MKDB(8) PWD_MKDB(8)
NAME
pwd_mkdb - generate the password databases
SYNOPSIS
pwd_mkdb [ -p ] [ -d directory ] file
DESCRIPTION
Pwd_mkdb creates db(3) style secure and insecure databases
for the specified file. These databases are then
installed into ``/etc/spwd.db'' and ``/etc/pwd.db''
respectively. The file is installed into
``/etc/master.passwd''. The file must be in the correct
format (see passwd(5)). It is important to note that the
format used in this system is different from the historic
Version 7 style format.
The options are as follows:
-p Create a Version 7 style password file and install
it into ``/etc/password''.
------------------------------------------------------------
Hope to have been clear,
Ollivier
--
Ollivier ROBERT roberto@hsc.fr.net
Hervé Schauer Consultants Ollivier.Robert@keltia.frmug.fr.net
PERL / MIME / PGP 2.6ui FreeBSD keltia 1.1.0(Current) CURRENT_082#0 i386