1 May
2015
1 May
'15
4:47 p.m.
So, I got a couple of RS/6000 systems (7043-140's) from another listmember
a while back, which I've finally got around to looking at. Both appear to
be working (one had a bad cache RAM connection, now fixed), although I only
have one drive between the two, which has AIX 4.3.2 installed.
I don't have install media, and I don't know the root password; question
is, can anyone tell me if Linux can mount AIX's filesystem, so that I can
reset it? I'm seeing a whole bunch of conflicting reports about that, in
particular that Linux' idea of JFS is based on that in OS/2, which is a
different animal to that which existed in AIX. (reason for asking rather
than just trying is that I don't actually have a PC-based SCSI board here
with me; I'd have to put the AIX drive in one of my Sun or SGI systems,
snarf raw data into a file via dd and FTP it across to mount it via a
loopback device under Linux - then do the reverse to get the modified image
back onto the disk)
If it comes to it, I can try scanning the raw disk blocks for root's entry
in the passwd file, removing the password (which I assume will just be a
single-character indicator to use a shadow file anyway) and making up the
slack in the comment field - which will hopefully work. But it would be far
easier to just access the file directly.
cheers
Jules
1 May
1 May
7:06 p.m.
Did a quick Google search. Here's a thread discussing booting from CD's:
http://www.unix.com/aix/19272-booting-rs-6000-machines-cd.html
Here's a eBay seller with the RS/6000 boot discs:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-AIX-OS-Ver-5L-for-POWER-V-5-1-5765-E61-LINUX-af…
I don't know about RS6000's so I don't know if these are bootable in your
system (correct processor etc). But basically you need to boot the boot disc boot in
single user mode. Mount the root partition and and edit the password files. If you
don't need what is on the disks you'd be better off doing a fresh install.
On May 1, 2015 at 4:46 PM, "Jules Richardson" <jules.richardson99 at
gmail.com> wrote:
So, I got a couple of RS/6000 systems (7043-140's) from another
listmember
a while back, which I've finally got around to looking at. Both
appear to
be working (one had a bad cache RAM connection, now fixed),
although I only
have one drive between the two, which has AIX 4.3.2 installed.
I don't have install media, and I don't know the root password;
question
is, can anyone tell me if Linux can mount AIX's filesystem, so
that I can
reset it? I'm seeing a whole bunch of conflicting reports about
that, in
particular that Linux' idea of JFS is based on that in OS/2, which
is a
different animal to that which existed in AIX. (reason for asking
rather
than just trying is that I don't actually have a PC-based SCSI
board here
with me; I'd have to put the AIX drive in one of my Sun or SGI
systems,
snarf raw data into a file via dd and FTP it across to mount it
via a
loopback device under Linux - then do the reverse to get the
modified image
back onto the disk)
If it comes to it, I can try scanning the raw disk blocks for
root's entry
in the passwd file, removing the password (which I assume will
just be a
single-character indicator to use a shadow file anyway) and making
up the
slack in the comment field - which will hopefully work. But it
would be far
easier to just access the file directly.
cheers
Jules
10:44 p.m.
Il giorno ven, 01/05/2015 alle 18.47 -0500, Jules Richardson ha scritto:
So, I got a couple of RS/6000 systems (7043-140's)
from another listmember
a while back, which I've finally got around to looking at. Both appear to
be working (one had a bad cache RAM connection, now fixed), although I only
have one drive between the two, which has AIX 4.3.2 installed.
Well, up to version 3 you could do a floppy boot.
I have 4.3.3 ISOs available, original CDs coming from one of my
machines.
399485763 2009-12-16 12:14 AIX-4.3.3-01.iso.bz2
I think it's the safest way to reset root password.
--
Vincenzo (aka Supervinx)
--==ooOoo==--
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http://www.supervinx.com/OnlineMuseum
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You can reach me at:
www.supervinx.com
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http://www.youtube.com/user/supervinx
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5 May
5 May
8:11 a.m.
On 05/01/2015 06:47 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
I don't have install media, and I don't know
the root password
Follow-up to this; I ended up hooking the AIX drive up to my SGI O2200,
then writing some quick C code to scan raw disk blocks for potential
password entries, which left me with ~370 possible blocks.
Those I then transferred over to a Linux machine (I don't have any PC SCSI
controllers on this side of the Atlantic with which to hook the drive up
directly) and filtered out a lot of false-positives, leaving me with just
five blocks.
At the suggestion of another listmember, I ran a password cracker* on the
remaining data, rather than clearing the passwords and writing raw data
back to the disk (I don't believe that JFS includes anything which would
have detected the change and become upset, but it did make more sense to
just try a cracker first).
* it's a little more involved than that, because of course IBM does things
differently and the shadow file isn't in the normal format, so needs
converting first.
Anyway, all good now (except I may still want to do a clean OS install,
depending on what data's on the machine)
cheers
Jules
12:12 p.m.
I picked up a Tadpole / IBM N40 recently and this is the exact same methodology I used- if
anyone knows of a better way do deal with JFS disks, I'm all ears.
On May 5, 2015, at 08:11, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
On 05/01/2015 06:47 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
I don't have install media, and I don't know the root password
Follow-up to this; I ended up hooking the AIX drive up to my SGI O2200, then writing some
quick C code to scan raw disk blocks for potential password entries, which left me with
~370 possible blocks.
Those I then transferred over to a Linux machine (I don't have any PC SCSI
controllers on this side of the Atlantic with which to hook the drive up directly) and
filtered out a lot of false-positives, leaving me with just five blocks.
At the suggestion of another listmember, I ran a password cracker* on the remaining data,
rather than clearing the passwords and writing raw data back to the disk (I don't
believe that JFS includes anything which would have detected the change and become upset,
but it did make more sense to just try a cracker first).
* it's a little more involved than that, because of course IBM does things
differently and the shadow file isn't in the normal format, so needs converting
first.
Anyway, all good now (except I may still want to do a clean OS install, depending on what
data's on the machine)
cheers
Jules
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days inactive
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4 comments
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