On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:44 AM, James Bensley <jwbensley at gmail.com> wrote: > So on a virtual server the root password was no longer working (as in > I couldn't ssh in anymore). Only I and one other know it and neither > of us have changed it. No other account had the correct privileges to > correct this so I'm wondering, if I had mounted that vdi as a > secondary device on another VM, browsed the file system and delete > /etc/shadow would this have wiped all users passwords meaning I could > regain access again? > > (This is past tense because its sorted now but I'm curious if this > would have worked? And if not, what could I have done?). Deleting /etc/shadow is *BAD*. You just blew away everyone's password, and will cause enormous confusion. If you can't restore it, use "pwunconv" to turn off the use of /etc/shadow, and "pwconv" to re-enable it. The passwords will be locked, I believe: then you can mount the idle filesystem, do a "chroot" to the idle filesystem, and run "passwd root" to set a new password.