RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies

[Alan Perry]

On 2/19/19 1:31 PM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote:
> On 2/18/19 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote:
>> The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but 
>> this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for 
>> that install.
>>
>> Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed?
>
> If you've got another Unix-a-like (e.g. Linux works fine) machine 
> kicking around with SCSI, it's possible to hack up some shell script 
> to 'dd' blocks from the AIX machine's drive one by one, looking for 
> stuff that looks like part of the password file. Then you can save 
> them, edit them to make the data appear like a normal Unix passwd file 
> (IBM being IBM, AIX in those days did things a little differently), 
> and run one of the various password crackers on the result (e.g. JtR).
>
> That process worked for my 7043-140, anyway. I don't think that the 
> filesystem for AIX that old is directly supported on anything, so you 
> can't just mount it like I believe you can more modern releases. Of 
> course if you have install media, then as someone else mentioned I 
> believe there are ways of resetting it that way which are (probably) 
> far easier :-)

Thanks. I am all set now. I got a pointer to AIX 4.3.3 iso images and 
have been able to do a fresh install on the system. I also have a Model 
150 that I need to go through and I think the AIX iso images will work 
for that as well.

I haven't touched AIX in decades, so it did kinda hurt trying to wrap my 
brain around it again.

alan
>
> cheers
>
> Jules
>