Help please

I have today messed up my sudoers file which means no users can sudo in
to our system.

I therefore need to do a restore of the file - no problems, I have a
backup.

Now comes the problem.

The system is secure, and nobody seems to know the root password.

The system will not let me su - to log in as root

How do I run the Shutdown process, as I need to log in as root to run
this?

Many thanks

Gary

gary.cobden@nhs.net wrote:
> The system is secure, and nobody seems to know the root password.
> How do I run the Shutdown process, as I need to log in as root to run
> this?

Are you sure the single-user boot is unprotected?

--
Alex.

On 2005-09-30, gary.cobden@nhs.net <gary.cobden@nhs.net> wrote:

> I have today messed up my sudoers file which means no users can sudo in
> to our system.

This is why right way to change the sudoers file is using visudo.
(And batch changes should use "visudo -c" on the temp tile before renaming it.)


> The system is secure, and nobody seems to know the root password.

How do you know it's secure ?

--
Elvis Notargiacomo master AT barefaced DOT cheek
http://www.notatla.org.uk/goen/
Powergen write "Why not stay with us" - let me count the ways!

gary.cobden@nhs.net wrote:

> Help please
>
> I have today messed up my sudoers file which means no users can sudo in
> to our system.
>
> I therefore need to do a restore of the file - no problems, I have a
> backup.
>
> Now comes the problem.
>
> The system is secure, and nobody seems to know the root password.
>
> The system will not let me su - to log in as root
>
> How do I run the Shutdown process, as I need to log in as root to run
> this?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Gary
>
is there a /etc/shutdown.allow file on the system? if it has no names
then only root can reboot, if there are other names then they can
shutdown too. If the system is set in secure mode then you will need to
power off the system, disconnect the primary and secondary boot disk
then power it up, once it is done with self test it will fail boot and
reset secure mode. Then power down again, reconnect disks and then
interuppt the IPL and you can then go to single user mode and change
root's passwd.

gary.cobden@nhs.net writes:

> Help please
>
> I have today messed up my sudoers file which means no users can sudo in
> to our system.
>
> I therefore need to do a restore of the file - no problems, I have a
> backup.
>
> Now comes the problem.
>
> The system is secure, and nobody seems to know the root password.

If you are using HP's Data Protector, you could restore /etc/passwd of any
system to the target system without knowing the root password (for the
restore). If you (temporarily) restore a password file where you know the
root's password, you could log in. When in doubt, prepare an empty root
password on some machine, backup, and restore it to the target machine. Log in
as root, then restore the last good password file to the target and change the
root's password. For the future maybe install an authorized SSH key for root
login without knowing a password...

Hope it helps.

Regards,
Ulrich

>
> The system will not let me su - to log in as root
>
> How do I run the Shutdown process, as I need to log in as root to run
> this?
>
> Many thanks
>
> Gary