Root Password Recovery for any Solaris 10 (without CD/DVD). Below is the detailed procedure for the same.

1.) Bring the server at OK prompt. ...........T5240/ILOM................................ --> set /HOST send_break_action=break --> start /SP/console to get to the ok prompt. Manual system reset from the ILOM prompt --> set /HOST/bootmode script="setenv auto-boot? false" --> reset /SYS .................T2000/SC................................. # init 0 (If it doesnt work from SC> break > y) SC> console OK> M5000-----------------------Turn off the power to all domains. XSCF> poweroff -a Confirm that all domains have stopped. XSCF> showlogs power Power on the existing domains. XSCF> poweron -a

2.) boot in failsafe mode from OK prompt (Important Note: Sometimes (every time is X-86 servers) the Failsafe mode will a sk you to mount the rootdisk before giving you the Shell prompt. Do not mount at that time, just say No every where and bring the failsafe mode at Shell Prompt and then do the mount and update archive manually.) {0} ok boot -F failsafe Hardware watchdog enabled Configuring devices. Searching for installed OS instances No installed OS instance found. Starting shell. # uname -a SunOS 5.10 Generic_142909-17 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V245 # df -k Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on /ramdisk-root:a 201463 178943 2374 99% / > Server booted from RAM. /devices 0 0 0 0% /devices ctfs 0 0 0 0% /system/contract proc 0 0 0 0% /proc

mnttab 0 0 0 0% /etc/mnttab swap 7725248 320 7724928 1% /etc/svc/volatile objfs 0 0 0 0% /system/object sharefs 0 0 0 0% /etc/dfs/sharetab swap 7725504 576 7724928 1% /tmp /tmp/dev 7725504 576 7724928 1% /dev fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd # # format >> check if primary disk path is correct and visible 3.) Once your server will boot up in Failsafe, mount your rootdisk at /a. Here m y rootdisk is c1t1d0s0. # mount /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0 /a # df -h /a Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0 7.9G 7.1G 714M 92% /a 4.) Take a copy of /a/etc/passwd & /a/etc/shadow file. # cp -p /a/etc/passwd /a/etc/passwd-orig # cp -p /a/etc/shadow /a/etc/shadow-orig 5.) Now stick to basic and remove the encrypted password entry for root from /a/ etc/shadow file. Before Modifications: # TERM=vt100 # export TERM # cat /a/etc/shadow # vi /a/etc/shadow root:WP7grKsEFAgt.:15182:::::: After Modifications: #grep root /a/etc/shadow root::15182:::::: #unmount /a Do the stap 3,4,5 again for mirror disk 6.) Update the boot archive as below before proceeding with the reboot. # bootadm update-archive # 7.) Reboot your system, #sync #sync # init 6 after reboot, you are allowed to login into the server without password. Now fir st recommended thing would be to set you password for root.

//Note: The procedure for Solaris X-86 is also same, In X-86 select the Failsafe mode from GRUB Menu which is present in the GRUB menu bydefault. The GRUB is pi cking the entry from /boot/grub/menu.lst.//