Re: Root account desactivated - confirmed

[Alvin Oga <alvin.sec () Virtual Linux-Consulting com>]

hi ya sil

> If you have sudo on the machine you can try doing something like
>
> sudo sed 's/\/sbin/\/nologin/\/bin\/bash/g' /etc/passwd >> /tmp/passwd|\
> mv /tmp/passwd /etc/passwd

you've just confirmed why root accts should be disabled for everybody,
even those with sudo priviledges
        if i have my sed'ing right,
        the above sed will convert all /sbin/nologin to /bin/bash
        ( even for silly (ftp, rpm, gpm, etc ) accts that should NEVER
        ( be a login account 

if one knows root passwd, they should be able to figure out
how to properly fix it ... ( my philophosy )
        "properly" in my definition, implies telling all security
        personal that the change is proposed and will be implemented
        and why it was needed

for the above shell problem for root,
        go to single user and change it back to what is should be

        if it asks for passwd, than you will need a valid shell
        so you will need to boot a different cdrom ( xxx linux boot cd )
        and mount your system and fix it

c ya
alvin

> On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, MARTIN M. BĂ©noni wrote:
>
> > Hi community!
> >
> > I have a really stupid trouble: on a Redhat 9.0, the line matching the root
> > account in the file /etc/passwd has been changed from ".../bin/bash" to
> > ".../sbin/nologin". We have the root password, but when performing a "su"
> > command, the system replies that the account is not currently available.
> >
> > So the question is: how from an user's account and knowing the root's
> > password but having the root account disabled can we reactivate this root's
> > account?
> >
> > Any suggestion would be appreciated, I do not want to reinstall the box :(


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