A.P. Lawrence

This article is from a FAQ concerning SCO operating systems. While some of the information may be applicable to any OS, or any Unix or Linux OS, it may be specific to SCO Xenix, Open Desktop or Openserver.

There is lots of Linux, Mac OS X and general Unix info elsewhere on this site: Search this site is the best way to find anything.

Unix, Xenix and ODT General FAQ

How do I reset the root password if I forget it? (part 3)

(For Linux, see http://www.aplawrence.com/Linux/lostlinuxpassword.html)

This procedure will work for any variant of SCO Xenix or Unix. As above, boot from your emergency boot diskettes and

mount /dev/hd0root /mnt

to gain access to your hard drive's root filesystem. Now, run

/mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/mnt/bin/passwd root"

(check the chroot man page for more info on how it works). As before, shut down and reboot. It has been reported that on 3.2v4.2 (and possibly others), this must be done in two steps:

/mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/bin/su root"
passwd

If it doesn't work with the quotes, try it without.

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