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Thread: What is the Root password in 3.4?

  1. #1
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    What is the Root password in 3.4?

    All I want to do for now is set the time on the clock.

    /KNOPPIX/usr/bin/kcmnshell clock --lang en_US

    and "knoppix" nor "KNOPPIX' is not working.

  2. #2
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    There is no root password

    for anything requiring root, while logged in as knoppix, simply type "su" without the quotes.

    This makes you root, where you can set the clock

    http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/clock2a.html

    knoppix user turns into root, with the $ turning into #

    Find your local time server above (after setting your locale), then su into root, then do the following:

    # ntpdate AddressOfNTPserverHere.edu

    After that, its easy. Using your bash memory (save configuration), su into root, then hit the up arrow until you find the command above, then hit enter. That's it.

  3. #3
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    ok, I screwed that one up. For the command you are looking for, you do need to set a root password iirc. So, open a shell, type su so you become root, then type passwd, and type in a password (follow the prompt). You'll need to repeat it so you don't get a key sequence wrong and get the password wrong. Once that's done, you should be able to do what you wanted to do.

    If you forget the password, and for security, be aware that you can simply open a shell as before, su, and still get root without the password. And you can also hit CTRL-ALT F2, or F3, or F4, getting console, and you will automatically be logged in as root, where you can change the password without knowing the original one.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Craig2
    There is no root password

    for anything requiring root, while logged in as knoppix, simply type "su" without the quotes.
    I'm also looking for a root password. My problem is that now that I've finally got 3.4 to boot on my notebook, I found an option under the menu to run "Ethereal as root". When you take this choice right from the menu, a little box pops up asking what the root password is. If you try to leave this box blank (or put in any password), you get an error message telling you that you have the wrong password and Ethereal will not run. It hardly makes any sense to me to have this as a menu option on a bootable CD if you can never get past this point (clearly if someone has done a hard disk install they could add this to the menu if they wanted it).

    So why build a Knoppix CD with a problem right in the menu that there is no password for?

  5. #5
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    another way to do it would be to login to the box as root using the cheatcodes and the knoppix2 option.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by XeoNoX
    another way to do it would be to login to the box as root using the cheatcodes and the knoppix2 option.
    I could boot 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 fine (a network problem showed up after taking some XP updates, but that's been discussed in the networking forum), but only just today found the cheat codes that get 3.4 to boot on my HP notebook. And still trying to refine those. Can you give a little more detail on what cheat codes you have in mind for the login box option and what this knoppix2 option is (or a link to same)?

  7. #7
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    There's a reason (or several) for their being no root password. You have to understand the original target audience of knoppix to understand why there is no root password by default. Part of the original target audience for knoppix, if I'm correct, was for recoveries, and as a utilities distro, among others. And to scratch Klaus's itch. And it is important for some that the distro remain without a root password, for various reasons. I won't get into all of them. That can be discussed in another area of the forums, if it hasn't been already. One more obvious one is that because of the way knoppix works, a password is useless if ANYONE has physical access to your computer. If they have physical access, they have root access. When you can understand why this is true (any console automatically logs in as root, any shell opened, knoppix user can su without a password even after one is set), then you will have a better understanding of how knoppix works, and why a password for root is useless locally.

    This is what you need to understand:

    1. There is no password by default.
    2. Some applications require a password to work, such as kusers, the screensaver, and others. One other one that you seem to have discovered.
    3. In order to use applications that require a root password, you must set one. This is how:

    a. If you are logged into runlevel 5 (you have kde running in front of you), open a shell by clicking on the picture of the monitor on the toolbar (which is the "kicker" process btw), and when you hover over it with your mouse pointer, it says "Terminal-Emulation". Click on it once, and select, "shell", and click on that. A shell will open, that gives you a command prompt that says, " knoppix@ttyp2[knoppix]$" or something similar. When you get this prompt, type "su" without the quotes. Hit enter.

    b. You will have, "root@ttyp2[knoppix]#" without the quotes. You are now logged in as root. You will be setting the root password, and then exiting root, and continuing your work as knoppix, or as other users you have created, not root. If you stay logged in as root unnecessarily, that is how damage can be done, and how you can make your system insecure.

    c. type: "passwd" without the quotes. You will immediately get this:
    Enter new UNIX password:

    d. Do what it says. Type in your password. You will immediately get this:
    Retype new UNIX password:

    e. Do what it says. Retype your password. If they don't match, you will get this:
    Sorry, passwords do not match
    passwd: Authentication information cannot be recovered

    If they do match, you will get this:
    passwd: password updated successfully
    root@ttyp2[knoppix]#

    f. Then type "exit" (without the quotes), and hit enter. You will get this:
    knoppix@ttyp2[knoppix]$

    g. Congratulations. You have successfully set a password for root. You can now use the application you were using, as well as applications such as the gui user tool, kusers to add users, change groups, etc.

    You should be able to do the same for knoppix, and you should, so that you can easily stop the screensaver or whatever else. If you don't have a password for knoppix, and the screensaver is activated by some mysterious person, what you do then is use CTRL-ALT F2, F3, or F4 to switch to a console (same as runlevel 3), where you will be at a command prompt, and you will be logged in as root. You can do one of two things at this point. You can either use "top" to find the process number for the screensaver, and kill it while running top, or stop top and type, "kill -9 processnumber" substituting the actual process number for "processnumber" (kill -9 2202, if 2202 is the process number), or instead of using top, you can type, "ps aux | less" and use your arrow keys to go up/down/left/right to see which process number is the correct one to kill for the screensaver.

    An alternate method is to switch to one of the consoles, F2, F3, F4, where you will be logged in as root, and su into knoppix, by typing "su knoppix", and you will then be logged in as knoppix instead of root, and set a password. When this is done, you return to your X session (kde), by typing simultaneously, CTRL-ALT-F5, which puts you back at the screensaver, where you can enter the new password you just set.

    If you understand the last paragraph, it should be obvious why a password is useless locally. Anyone can type CTRL-ALT-F2, get a console, and type "passwd" and set a NEW password, which gives them access to the entire system, because they have root. Why isn't this a big deal? Because anyone that has local access can get access to your system using other methods (install their own hard drive, use your hard drive as secondary, get root, access, reboot from a knoppix cd without scanning for the configuration file, copying and pasting known password from another system into the correct configuration file in your system (this is true of most other distros as well), etc.

    Once you have local access to a computer, its trivial in most circumstances to get access to everything. If security is a major concern, you lock everything up, use an encrypted swap partition and an encyrpted data partition, use the security enhanced linux version, leave a thoroughly checked out guard at the premises, leave another guard to watch the first guard, leave a family member to watch the 2nd guard, make sure it isn't a spouse that knows you are cheating, buy a shredder, install a fireplace/incinerator, install cameras, and so on.

  8. #8
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    Also, if you are saving your configuration, you will need to save your configuration after setting the root password, or the system will not remember the root password, and the next time you boot, it will work the same way it was working previously to setting the password.

  9. #9
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    I was going to add this to the previous post, but forgot. For those of you running a knoppix version prior to 3.4, you don't have the icon that looks like a picture of a black computer screen (with the frame and pedestal) on the kde task bar (kicker panel). Some of you may not have a redundant T-3 connection to the internet (just a joke, folks) where the chokepoint is the ftp server you are downloading from, so you can't download every version of knoppix.

    For those with earlier versions of knoppix, you get a shell by clicking on the icon that looks like a black screen (without a pedestal), which also looks like it has a shell (seashell) on one side, which is also located on the task bar (kicker panel).

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