SuSE root breakin

[Lonni J Friedman]

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Jay Nugent <jjn at nuge.com> wrote:
>
>>   I have a server running SuSE 10.3 that I need to correct some settings
>> on its Postfix configuration, and need root to do it.  The customer gave
>> me the box to work on, but didn't give me the root PW.  I understand that
>> I can boot into "rescue" from the install DVD (done that), then create a
>> mount point (done that), and edit /etc/fstab (done that -- albeit not
>> correctly apparently).
>>
>>   Can't seem to get the hard drive mounted after trying all sorts of
>> permutations of fstab.  I don't know the exact partitioning of the hard
>> drive but *seem* to recall it was basically three partitions, /, /home,
>> and swap, and that it is a SATA drive.  But I can't recall whether it had
>> LVM turned on or not, and I have NO idea how to deal with LVM *if* it was
>> turned on.
>>
>
> The first step is to boot from the recovery disk, then
>
> 1. fdisk /dev/sd? (a,b,c, etc - whatever the drive is)
> 2. p
> 3.. if any partition is type 8E, you have LVM, otherwise not
> 4. If not, just mount /dev/sd?n  /some/mount/point (? as above, n as
> in the p display)
> 5.. Swap partition is type 82, Linux partitions are type 83
> 6.. ls  /some/mount/point to see if you have home or root
> 7. When you have the right partition mounted, make your postfix changes.
> 8. If you have LVM, then I'm going to have to think about it . You
> need the name to proceed.
> 9. To activate the name, 'lvchange -a y name' then 'lvdisplay name'.

This seems like a rather convoluted way of just booting into single
user mode.  Why not just edit the kernel line in GRUB and append
'single' to the end and boot from there?  No fancy rescue disks
needed.


-- 
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L. Friedman netllama at gmail.com
LlamaLand https://netllama.linux-sxs.org