> Hi, I am writting this message in hope that you can be of a great help to
> me. My husband that has been on this site died suddenly Feb 4th) and I
> can not access my computer. He has a user name and password on the
> system. He has used the Linux and Red Hat to run the computer.... He
> would boot up the system and then I would do my email, documents, etc. I
> never thought to ask him his password or username. There is no one in
> our area that knows how to change the username and password on the Linux
> system... Can you or some one you may know help. I did find a Red Hat
> Boot disk... not sure what to do with it!!!!
>
> I am able to use this email so that is why I am sending this to you
> ,trying to find help. I can be reached through a friend if you can call
> me 970 208 3131..... or email... will be OK also............ I hope
> there is someone to help me get on my computer... Laura
Well, on the one hand, an email like this makes me *very* nervous, since
it reads like a scam, with questions like "how can you email here if you
can't get to his email?"
On the other hand, if true, it's utterly horrible - my ...late... wife
died that way, and it's not exactly a Big Sekret Of Sysadmins that all you
need to do is reboot the server, and assuming it shows the usual "booting
linux in x seconds", all you need to do is hit any key, then type 'e',
then scroll down to the line that starts with the word "kernel"; hit 'e'
again (no quotes, anywhere, of course), and at the end of the line, add
the letter s (for single user mode), then <enter>, then the letter b (for
boot).
It then comes up in single user mode, and all you need to do is to change
his password, if your email is under his account. You can
cat /etc/password
and you'll probably be able to figure out his username; then it's merely
passwd <hisusername>
and give a new password when prompted. When you're done, hit <ctrl-D>, and
let it come up, then you can log in.
mark