RS/6000 (AIX) password reset - Linux?

[Kirk B Davis]

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-affinity-RS-6000-5-new-discs-/381244154027?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58c3ec20ab

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