Hello *,

I have a problem: forgotten password on one of RS6000 machines with AIX
5.1 inside.
Unortunately standard procedure of recovery with installation CD is
useless, because one of hdisks has failed and it is not possible to
mount rootvg during one of steps of standard recovery procedure.

The system is booting up with errors during some partitions mounting.
However it possible to logon as a normal user (staff group).

I have also tried to run some exploits...
Unfotunatelly I haven't found nothing against maitenace level: 06...
OS reinstallation is not a option since there are some apps there and I
don't have installation media for them...

How else can I recover the password?

Please help,

Peter

if your primary disk has failed then I am not sure how your logging as
a normal user. If your getting this far you should be able to boot off
a cd and change it.

Can you put the disk in another system?

I agree with Frank, I am not understanding your situation....

If you can get into the system, then it seems like you should be able
to edit
the /etc/passwd or /etc/security/passwd.

When you are booting from CD, there are two options for mounting the
rootvg:
CHoose the one that does not mount the filesstems.
Then hand mount them, and manipulate the password files.

As to "breaking" in. Use your knowledge of the system, not the OS.

Have you installed sudo?
Do you have any security looseness in any of the sudoers settings
(granting any one
of these programs will provide a security hole:
vi,cat, more, mv, etc...Which should be a warning to anyone who is
unfamiliar
with the beauty, and complexity of setting up a correct sudoers file
)

Do you have any of the applications that you have installed have set
uid root
functions somewhere in them?

--Casey

If you have rsh configured with other systems for root user . That
would ease a lot of work