GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Passwords

If you forget your password for root, then you will be in a spot of bother. One way to fix this is to reboot the machine using the Debian installation floppy or CD. When you get the first question (about the having a colour monitor) press CTRL-ALT-F1 to get a shell. Mount your root partition (let's say it is /dev/hda1):

# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt

then edit the password file to erase the encrypted password for root:

# editor /mnt/etc/passwd

Save the file then reboot (CTRL-ATL-DEL).

Subsections

• Password File Sharing
  • Using rdist
  • Simple tar
  • Using NIS
    • Setting Up The Master Server
    • Setting Up The Client