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Recover Admin Password with Root

Snipeye

Snipeye

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
26
0
I've had my computer up and running for a while now, and most of the time I need an admin password I use the root account. Last time I tried to use my normal admin account password, it didn't work. I vaguely remember changing it for some reason, and I'm wondering if there's a way to recover what i changed it to using the root account. I'm really interested in what that might be, just because I don't mess around with things like that very often. I already looked through keychain access, no luck there. Help please?
 
boot to your reinstallation disks using disk 1 or to an Apple OS X dvd. Under the utilities menu there is a password reset/change tool.
 
I don't want to change the password - I want to recover. I think I changed it for a reason, and if I knew what I changed it to, I could remember.
 
i swear there was a terminal command that let displayed all the usernames and their passwords, but the passwords were greyed/starred out. Ring any bells, anybody? Could I maybe un-gray the password?
 
Snipeye said:
i swear there was a terminal command that let displayed all the usernames and their passwords, but the passwords were greyed/starred out. Ring any bells, anybody? Could I maybe un-gray the password?
Click to expand...

Password hashes are stored at :

/var/db/shadow/hash/

You can view them and attempt to crack them with John The Ripper.

If the account doesn't have Filevault enabled, you can go to ~/Library/Keychains, and try a brute force attack on the keychain (with crowbarKC.)
 
I guess I"ll try that - where's a good dictionary to try with?
 
Just be careful when doing using the passwd command. It will screw the keychain. This has happened to be before i was unable to repair the keychain.

The safest way is to boot of the disk and change the password that way.
 
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