[K12OSN] Root password corrupts ?

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Barry R Cisna wrote:

>     HI LIST,,
>  
>     Has anyone else using K12LTSP ( v 4.2.0) experienced the root 
> password "corrupting"?
>     We are running four K12LTSP,servers ( 2 each,on a two subnet 
> ..network).
>     I m the only person accessing any of the servers,,,and I've {sort 
> of},,,am thinking the password corruption,
>     may possibly do to  using Webmin to do a few tasks, and it seems 
> this happens when using MS Internet Explorer
>     ( wouldnt you know it)!..
>     A couple time,s i've simply "looked" at some config files,,through 
> Webmin,,,,and after exiting,,,then trying to VNC back into the same 
> server, from my client box the root password,,,no longer works?
>     Of course the root password also no longer lets me log into the 
> Webmin interface.
>     I m using the lastest version of Webmin 1.180.
>     ALso,,it seems this has happened when I've had two or three IE 
> /Webmin,pages open at the same time, looking at the four different 
> servers,,, at the same time from my client Windows box?
>     Ive had to reformat a few times do to this very problem! ( ugh)...
>     I had know way of correcting the "trashed" password..
>     Tryed to do a "manual" copy of the passwd,gshadow,shadow,group 
> file from another "good" root password,server, but no joy,:(.
>  
>     Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this,,or if I m 
> worng on the Webmin,"theory"..
>  
>     Thanks....


Having never used Webmin, I can't speak to that, but there is a way to 
recover from a "forgotten" root password.  A corrupted root password 
might as well be "forgotten" for the purposes of this discussion.  What 
you get to do is boot in "rescue" mode and mount your hard disk 
partitions manually.  For example, your root ("/") partition might go 
under /mnt/root, and everything else goes under that tree.  Then, you 
chroot into /mnt/root and change your root password normally.  That's 
how I got myself out of a jam once.

--TP