From: wampler@microunity.com (Kurt Wampler)
Subject: Re: Pro 380 problems continued...
Organization: MicroUnity Systems Engineering Inc.
Distribution: usa,local
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:44:34 GMT

petrisko@evax2.engr.arizona.edu (William Petrisko) writes:

>In article <BARRY.92Sep28134914@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu>, barry@chezmoto.ai.mit.edu (Barry Kort) writes:
>>Login as SYSTEM with password SYSTEM

>Not so lucky.  It appears to have been changed.  Is there a way to boot
>from disk and go in and change the password file?  Does anyone have a
>set of boot disks??  (sigh)

>Is the password file under p/os encrypted?  It may be possible to mount
>that drive on my qnx machine and look/search at the actual data on the
>drive, if it would do any good?  What are the parameters or a RD-52A drive?

>-bill, looking for solutions or the pro goes back to being a doorstop
>--
>bill petrisko                                  petrisko@evax2.engr.arizona.edu
>   aka n7lwo                 ...!uunet!4gen!warlok!gargle!omnisec!thumper!bill
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well...the P/OS manuals say that if you forget the SYSTEM password, you have
to re-install the operating system from floppies.  Kinda painful...

I am attaching to this post Q23 from the FAQ file compiled by Chaim Dworkin.
The information therein may be of some use.

Yes, the stored passwords appear to be encrypted on my system running P/OS 3.2.
I'll snoop around on my system for the "password floppy" feature mentioned by
Glenn Everhart (below) and let you know if I find anything useful.

Kurt Wampler
wampler@MicroUnity.com

============================ EXCERPT FROM FAQ ==================================
Q23.  I was given a Pro-350 by an office that was junking it and when I
booted it up it asked for a password.  I don't know any passwords.  How can
I break past that and delete the password file?
 
Well, I've never really dealt with P/OS, but a long, long time ago I was
involved with a group that had a similar problem with a PDP-11/60 that we
bought from another group at the site. It ran RSX-11M, but we didn't get
any passwords from the group from which we bought the machine. After a lot
of poking about in manuals, I found a way to get to the password file,
which in that version of RSX-11M was not encrypted.
 
While the machine was booting, executing the startup command file, I
pressed ^C. That gave me an MCR prompt at which I could type a command.
Since the machine was executing the startup command file, the MCR prompt
was attached to the system account. In an obscure manual that I no longer
have and don't remember very well, I found the name of the password file.
The MCR command that I issued, then, typed the password file on the
console.
 
Since P/OS is related to RSX-11M, it might work. Wish I could remember the
name of the account file, though...
 
   Roger Ivie   slsw2@cc.usu.edu
 
 
>From: kalisiak@acsu.buffalo.edu (christophe m kalisiak)
In article <1991Apr16.134937.47433@cc.usu.edu> slsw2@cc.usu.edu writes:
>While the machine was booting, executing the startup command file, I pressed
>^C. That gave me an MCR prompt at which I could type a command. Since the
>machine was executing the startup command file, the MCR prompt was attached
>to the system account. In an obscure manual that I no longer have and don't
>remember very well, I found the name of the password file. The MCR command
>that I issued, then, typed the password file on the console.
 
What was the command? I would say that if one were to delete the
password file, then you could probably start from scratch...
Don't quote me on it.
 
>Since P/OS is related to RSX-11M, it might work. Wish I could remember the
>name of the account file, though...
 
[0,0]RSX11.SYS
 
 
Chris Kalisiak
V076N3W7@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
kalisiak@acsu.buffalo.edu
 
To break into P/OS, if you can get to a Pro (runnin g p/os 2.0 or later at
least) that you can use, there is in the menu system a facility for writing
a "password floppy". If you boot the Pro and have that floppy loaded, its'
password will override the one on the hard disk. I used this technique
once, but it's been long enough ago I don't recall more detail. I believe
that some help exists on the system, though, as I had no manuals to infer
this from at the time. (Someone had left the company and his pro was
unusable till I freed it.) Doing this will also set a password on the pro
you make the floppy on, but you can reset that after the floppy is safely
written.
   I don't particularly recommend passwords on personal Pros due to
the extreme inconvenience they cause.
 
       Glenn Everhart    EVERHART@arisia.dnet.ge.com

Xref: sparky comp.sys.dec.micro:522 comp.sys.dec:5234