ultrastupid password question

[Kurt Wall]

In a 1.3K blaze of typing glory, Mike Reinehr wrote:
> I have a question about the instructions listed in cracking.html:
> 
>     on either the GRUB or LILO boot line, put: init=/bin/sh
>     when you have a root prompt, do the following:
>         mount -n -o remount,rw /
>         passwd root
>     (provide new password twice)
>         mount -n -o remount,ro /
>         sync;sync;sync
>     hit the reset switch
> 
> The instructions call for flushing the filesystem buffers, _after_ remounting 
> the root file system read only. I learned to do this years ago, also, before 
> doing a haltsys, but in this instance, does this really accomplish anything? 
> 
> Wouldn't it make more sense to do this just prior to the remount command, or 
> does mount handle flushing the buffers, too?

It doesn't hurt to do it before *and* after. Without reading mount's
source code, which I'm not inclined to do right now, it's hard to say
with certainly if it's strictly superfluous or not.

Kurt
-- 
The chief cause of problems is solutions.