Question: how do I log in as someone else

[sososowhat]

I'm the machine administrator & owner. I'd like to log into a user account on my machine for which I don't have the password. I know how to reset that password, but I don't want evidence of my snooping. Can I either use some master password to login as that user, or temporarily change their password & reset it to what it was?

btw: I have legitimate reasons for wanting to do this. It's not an ethical question.

Thanks,

-soso

 

[italiano40]

so you want to hack

i would use a second machine and then SSH tunnel right into the computer then search the hard drive for that login name

otherwise, no master password

 

[kresh]

I'm the machine administrator & owner. I'd like to log into a user account on my machine for which I don't have the password. I know how to reset that password, but I don't want evidence of my snooping. Can I either use some master password to login as that user, or temporarily change their password & reset it to what it was?

btw: I have legitimate reasons for wanting to do this. It's not an ethical question.

Thanks,

-soso

You got me to thinking, so on all my daughters users folders, I used "get info" and added me as having read only privileges. I looked around at everything in her folders, then removed my privileges.

 

[sososowhat]

That does sound hackey. Shouldn't I be able to do this from my own machine. From a shell as root I could "su", right? But how can I then totally log into their graphical environment, with their history, etc? Basically I want to use super-user privilege to log in as them without using their password. Can this be easily done?

 

[italiano40]

can't be done
either use the terminal or
use a linux live cd and crack their password with that, but that may take a long time like 3 hours todo depends on length