Comments on: FreeBSD Reset or Recover Root Password

By: Paulo

Paulo — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:48:19 +0000

Thanks, it worked ;-)

By: jay1

jay1 — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:53:22 +0000

Thanks a lot

By: Artak

Artak — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:56:59 +0000

I’ve had the same problem, but when tried

/sbin/mount -u /

it worked!

By: woronti

woronti — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:18:18 +0000

Thanks for the post. It saved me alot of headache

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:43:59 +0000

Helped me. Thank you.

By: Odkhuu

Odkhuu — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:47:29 +0000

Dont change password
error:
pwd_mkdb: warning, unknown root shell

By: Vivek Gite

Vivek Gite — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:29:39 +0000

Password protect FreeBSD boot loader

By: Kupai

Kupai — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:17:56 +0000

How can I protect myself against others who want to get root privileges this way?

By: MihaKot

MihaKot — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:16:10 +0000

Hi.
When i boot in single mode
he ask me password for root or press ^D to go multi user.
Can help?

By: bleuken

bleuken — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:52:08 +0000

Thanks for this post! I’m glad that I can use this to my problem on FreeBSD. I really forgot my password and I need to access the root (it’s the only user for the server and I need to fix it).

By: PAVIlIOnX

PAVIlIOnX — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:44:26 +0000

i was follow all steps, but when i put in console the command “passwd” or “passwd root”, return me
passwd: unknown user root.

Please!!! help me!!!!!

By: andrei

andrei — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:55:51 +0000

i followed the stept and it’s telling me that /usr was not properly dismounted

help pls!!!

By: tamayekiyan

tamayekiyan — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:20:29 +0000

Dear nixcraft:

I booted with freebsd 6.1 cd and proceed to sysinstall. I selected FIXIT and I got a root prompt at vty4.

I have done the above instruction, after typing a command in the root # prompt; the system says: command not found.

then I typed mount -u / – still i got command not found error. If i type ls, it will display command not found as well. If I type pwd – system say / (currently in the root directory).

Am able to cd change directory to /usr and other subdirectory with no problems but mounting such device/directory – I have no luck at all.

looking forward for your advises.

Tamayekiyan.

By: nixcraft

nixcraft — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 19:17:09 +0000

FreeBSD 4.x/5.x

Allow FreeBSD to boot system and mount file system
mount -u /

if /usr is on separate partition, mount /usr too:
mount /usr

Now change password
passwd root
sync;sync

Hit CTRL+D.

Note that if the console was set as insecure in
/etc/ttys file. If so you will need to boot from a CD / floppy into fixit mode. Next mount your hard-disk read-write to continue the repair.

By: tamayekiyan

tamayekiyan — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:47:40 +0000

Dear Vivik:

I can execute this instruction with version 6 but doesn’t work with lower versions.

Is there any site that you can provide.

Thanks,
Tamayekiyan

By: Daemon Dancing in the Dark

Daemon Dancing in the Dark — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:36:56 +0000

Recover lost root password…

I’ve written abou this before, but nixCraft has a nice post on how to reset your root password if you forget it, using the new FreeBSD boot screen. Of course, if you done the tweak I point out here, to disable single user boot, you are, I think, prett…