RE: Root account desactivated

["Burton M. Strauss III" <BStrauss () acm org>]

How about something so simple, you're going to smack your head and scream
D'oh???
    Boot using a CD distro (e.g. Knoppix), mount the disk and edit the
file...

Now, if you can't reboot the box (although with the root password, I can't
imagine why not) let's see - all of the usual privledge escalation attacks.

... Can you replace /sbin/nologin with a ln to bash?
... Any interesting commands available to you via sudo?

etc.

But me - I'd reboot using Knoppix and be done with it.

-----Burton


> -----Original Message-----
> From: MARTIN M. Bénoni [mailto:benoni_martin () hotmail com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 8:48 AM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Root account desactivated
>
>
> Hi community!
>
> I have a really stupid trouble: on a Redhat 9.0, the line
> matching the root
> account in the file /etc/passwd has been changed from ".../bin/bash" to
> ".../sbin/nologin". We have the root password, but when performing a "su"
> command, the system replies that the account is not currently available.
>
> So the question is: how from an user's account and knowing the root's
> password but having the root account disabled can we reactivate
> this root's
> account?
>
> Any suggestion would be appreciated, I do not want to reinstall the box :(
>
> Thanks a lot in advance!
>
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to facilitate one-on-one interaction with one of our expert instructors. 
Attend a course taught by an expert instructor with years of in-the-field 
pen testing experience in our state of the art hacking lab. Master the skills 
of an Ethical Hacker to better assess the security of your organization. 
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