Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2358 mails)

[jperser@xxxxxxxxxxx (jperser)]

On Sat, 16 Oct 1999, Steve Pauly wrote:

> Greetings,
> 
> I appreciate everyones responses to this question. I will have to spend
> some time on the NT focused security sites to understand how NT works.
> Maybe installing an NT partition might be a good idea. You know, just to
> keep up with the Joneses. 
> 
> I use Win95 at work, and are surrounded by NT users. I have been using
> WinXX for many years, though I am sure I know linux better than I do Win,
> now. I had told a NT friend how I (dare I admit it?) "forgotten" my root
> password and had to bootup and change a shadow file to get back in. He
> kinda just "looked" at me. I did not pursue it with him, so I decided to
> turn to this group to find out how an NT box is re-entered after losing
> its "root" password. 

I use NT at work everyday and primarily do my own system administration.
Although I've never tried to break into a machine after forgetting the
root password, it probably can be done if you have another OS you can
boot into and the NT operating system is installed on a FAT partition.  If
it's installed on NTFS I think it is probably much harder.  There are some
utilities that supposedly allow you read NTFS from Win98 but I don't know
about writing.

I don't know of any way (although it may exist) to actually boot up into
NT from a floppy where you have access to your computer in the same manner
you do when you actually login.  You can boot setup floppies and do a
recover on the system if you have an Emergency Repair Disk.  This has the
ability to rewrite much of the contents of the registry and I think may
allow you to reset the user and security values that have been stored
(although I've never tried this).

Someone earlier had given some websites where some hacks may exist but I
don't remember what they were.  Maybe someone who knows alot more about
it will respond.

[snip]


-- 
To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxx
For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@xxxxxxxx             
Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/