Password problem in Knoppix 5.01

**horizon981** · 11-17-2006, 07:33 AM

OK.
Now here's one problem that's been giving me sleepless nights.
I am a great fan of Knoppix and when I saw version 5.01, I believed I had my dream distribution!
Anyways, here's the problem...

I installed it from live cd, and set a password for root and a normal account (pretty usual). Then, after rebooting and logging in, I changed network settings to get my broadband working, using the root password. Fair enough.

Now, after I have restarted Knoppix some 3-4 times, the root password seems to be forgotten.
If I open network settings, or anything else, it says wrong password to my root password. It doesn't take blank password, and my keyboard layout did not change.

It has happened after repeated installs. I wonder if I am doing something seriously wrong.

Any idea?

**horizon981** · 11-20-2006, 06:45 AM

??
So, Knoppix really breaks when installed to hard drive... I guess.

**yodabug** · 11-27-2006, 06:22 PM

So you install to harddrive, once it is finish reboot the system from the knoppix live cd once more, mount the hard drive partition containing the linux install and set the /etc/shadow file to read-only

You will obviously have to set it to read/write when you want to change the password and that is where the inconvenient part comes in...

It has been years since I actually used linux and I forget quite a bit, so I have no clue at this point in time if this is a good solution, or even how to do it, I believe "chmod" is the proper command but I will have to research it once more to understand fully linux file system permissions.

Please do not take my word for any of this, I am simply posting a suggestion that needs further (expert) input.

Cheers!

**yodabug** · 11-27-2006, 06:25 PM

Just in case you wanna give it a go..here is the contents of a root password entry in the /etc/shadow file:

==============================

root:weeWRSF!sfDFs:12581:0:99999:7:::

==============================

Delete everything between the first and second colons, so that the line looks like

==============================

root::12581:0:99999:7:::

==============================

Save the file and exit your editor.

Reboot the system from the hard drive once more and neter root using a blank password, reset the password and then make the /etc/shadow file read-only.

Hope this makes sense, I am going from main memory here and I beelive some parts of this could be incoorect. Again, try and get expert input on ths suggestion.

Cheers.

**sperovita** · 12-21-2006, 07:14 AM

I'm having the same problem, I have the knoppix 5.0.1 dvd beginner hd install, I grew up on dos so linux is backwards to me so I went with that install, though I'm starting to learn some more. Anyway the problem started when I did an apt-get install vlc, I really wanted vlc and I couldn't find it in the new version. It installed a mess of stuff took a half hour, I presume it updated the security or something, vlc worked great, but now my root password doesn't work. I've tried the above mentioned way, sort of lazy like, used the knoppix cd then made a root passwd with that, went to the superuser file manager, made the drive writable and just edited the files through the filemanager with kwrite. All in all it didn't work , still gives me "incorrect password," even with a blank field and it sucks I finally got everything working the way I wanted it to. Anyway any advice would be appreciated.

**marhleet** · 12-21-2006, 11:43 AM

I had this too
the root password works fine for logging in on the TTY screens
but it doesn't match in KDE

I think a package too many got removed (by me) in kpackage (apt-get)

I put konqueror back in and it works again, thinx!

**sperovita** · 12-22-2006, 02:38 AM

I feel dumb for asking this but how did you put konqueror back in, you mean the one that came on the dvd before you did apt-get?

**marhleet** · 12-22-2006, 10:27 AM

ctrl-alt-F4 to a tty screen
login
root
password
apt-get install konqueror

**marhleet** · 12-23-2006, 12:27 AM

i've got all 6 of mine now working properly again

date time showing correctly
and admin password working on the desktop

from the root tty screen
apt-get dist-upgrade

which takes a while
but appears to fix the password thingy
though it pobably only needed to do the one or two packages, but which ones
also samba now starts correctly and is visible from both linux and windows