Explain the NeXTStation "dim monitor" problem, etc... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Apr 2002

...
  From: Dave McGuire &lt;mcguire(a)neurotica.com&gt;
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
 Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:20:03 -0400
 To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject: Re: Explain the NeXTStation "dim monitor" problem, etc...
 Sender: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org

 On April 16, Christopher Smith wrote:
  Next, can anyone tell me why, after booting into
single user mode,
 and changing the root password with 'nu -m' I might still be 
 refused a login next time I boot?    ...
  A) It's getting another password from
somewhere and overwriting the
 one I put in? (I hope not.. :) 
   It's been many years since I ran NeXTSTEP, so this might be
 useless...but does "nu" modify the netinfo database?  If not, well,
 that might be the problem. 
The root password must be modified in such a way that Netinfo
knows about it.  One recipe for this is in the NeXT SysAdmin manual
under the subject "Lost Root Password".  The documentation is also
online in /NextLibrary/Documentation/NextAdmin/15_Trouble.rtfd.

The easiest way I know of to change the root password on NeXTstep is
to boot as single-user. then:

	# cd /tmp
	# nidump passwd . > tempfile
	# vi tempfile
			# here delete the password field from the
			# between the pair of : first line (root) entry
	# niload passwd . < tempfile
	# halt
Boot again, not as single-user.  Root now has a null password.

If you are an awk expert, you could combine the steps and not have the
intermediate file.  But it took me a few tries to get it right just now.
So it's easier to use an editor.

    carl
-- 

If you are an awk specialist, you could