R00T access
Gaining root access is one of the most important preventive actions an administrator can protect from. Obviously if the main system is ran in Admin mode this will prevent someone else from remotely logging into the system and gaining access, then the issue is how secure the physical premises.
If you have forgotten your root password though there are ways of dropping a system into a shell environment and resetting the root password in /etc/passwd. If LILO is used the first step is to try and boot into single user mode by typing LILO: Linux single. This should give you shell access to go into the passwd file and change the passwd for root. If LILO asks you for a passwd then you're working with a sharp admin whose password protected LILO. As a possibility try hitting ^C which might drop you to a root prompt, unless of course the same sharp admin has trapped the ^C access. In which case the last option to try is to go back into the LILO prompt and type LILO: Linux init=/bin/bash what you are telling the kernel is to give you a shell.
After gaining shell access it's possible that somethings can't be found due to being on a filesystem or disk which isn't mounted yet or it is on a read only mounted filesystem. These steps should help get around this:
mount -o remount, rw ' remount / readable and writable
mount -a ' mount all
mount ' show mounted filesystems
vi /etc/passwd ' clear the password for root
sync ' write buffers to disk
umount -a ' unmount filesystems
mount -o remount, ro / ' remount / read-only again
Ctrl Alt Del login: root ' login as root without a password
If you are using GRUB instead of LILO the RED Hat site has these steps which should work for you to gain a shell. At the selection menu highlight the linux entry and type e for edit. Arrow down to the line which starts the kernel and type e to edit the line. Go to the end of the line and either type single or type init 1 and hit enter to exit edit mode. back at the GRUB screen type b to boot up into the mode you selected. This should get you into a shell where you can vi into /etc/passwd and change the root passwd.
If you have forgotten your root password though there are ways of dropping a system into a shell environment and resetting the root password in /etc/passwd. If LILO is used the first step is to try and boot into single user mode by typing LILO: Linux single. This should give you shell access to go into the passwd file and change the passwd for root. If LILO asks you for a passwd then you're working with a sharp admin whose password protected LILO. As a possibility try hitting ^C which might drop you to a root prompt, unless of course the same sharp admin has trapped the ^C access. In which case the last option to try is to go back into the LILO prompt and type LILO: Linux init=/bin/bash what you are telling the kernel is to give you a shell.
After gaining shell access it's possible that somethings can't be found due to being on a filesystem or disk which isn't mounted yet or it is on a read only mounted filesystem. These steps should help get around this:
mount -o remount, rw ' remount / readable and writable
mount -a ' mount all
mount ' show mounted filesystems
vi /etc/passwd ' clear the password for root
sync ' write buffers to disk
umount -a ' unmount filesystems
mount -o remount, ro / ' remount / read-only again
Ctrl Alt Del login: root ' login as root without a password
If you are using GRUB instead of LILO the RED Hat site has these steps which should work for you to gain a shell. At the selection menu highlight the linux entry and type e for edit. Arrow down to the line which starts the kernel and type e to edit the line. Go to the end of the line and either type single or type init 1 and hit enter to exit edit mode. back at the GRUB screen type b to boot up into the mode you selected. This should get you into a shell where you can vi into /etc/passwd and change the root passwd.
