I cannot log on. My old password doesn't work. I am the root on
this system. How can I change the password or verify my old password?
--
Kevin Cary
Red Hat 2.0.30
This is a much debated topic since it essentially involves breaking your system's security. The main discussion point always seems to be how to do it without letting people do it to others. For the most part, it is easy to remove the root password from Linux (and many other flavors of Unix) servers, as long as the machine has a floppy drive that it boots from by default.
If you have a standard Linux system without shadow passwords,
you can simply boot from a ``boot and root'' floppy disk set, mount your
partition and edit the /etc/passwd file. In this file,
fields are separated by the colon (:) character. The second field on the
first line can be removed (so the entry looks like ::) and root will no
longer have a password. You can then reboot, log in as root and use
passwd to set the new root password.
--
Chad Robinson, BRT Technical Services Corporation
chadr@brttech.com
Which distribution should I download? Sorry about this low-level
question, but I couldn't find help elsewhere.
--
Erik Rask
That's a question that can easily spark religious debates, but I'll
side step that issue and just mention that there's a rather well-written
Distribution HOWTO available from any Linux Documentation Project
mirror (i.e., http://www.silug.org/LDP/) that describes the differences
between distributions.
--
Steven Pritchard
steve@silug.org
I need help in determining why my modem connection is so
slow. I have a 33.6Kb modem that runs fine in Windows, but I just haven't
found all of the files I must edit for making pppd run as fast as
possible.
--
Paul Carff
pppd has a setting called asyncmap, that is a mask of characters which it must escape. This masking allows pppd to be run across lines that may not handle all 256 characters of the ASCII set. A common example of this is a line that must use software flow control in the form of the ctrl-S and ctrl-Q characters to pace the flow of data. pppd cannot send those characters directly since they would interfere with the operation of the flow control; so, it sends another two characters (the escape and the replacement character) instead.
If no asyncmap parameter is set (as described in the pppd man page),
pppd will automatically escape all control characters just to
be sure the transmission is not interrupted. Obviously, this adds a good deal
of overhead to the transmissions. Setting the asyncmap to 0 results in a
noticeable increase in transfer rates on most systems.
--
Chad Robinson, BRT Technical Services Corporation
chadr@brttech.com
I just installed Red Hat 4.1, and I made a mistake while setting up the mouse. I set the mouse port to 1, but the real mouse port is 2. How can I change the mouse port?
--
Moon Ill June
The best way is to run mouseconfig from the command line. It
will let you choose the port just as you did at install time.
--
Donnie Barnes, Red Hat Software
redhat@redhat.com
I am running 2.0.7 and have tried to compile the kernels of
2.0.27, 2.0.30 and 2.1.x, all of which give me the same
error on execution. All of the kernels compiled successfully,
but they crashed on bootup with the message
``kernel stack corruption''. What could be wrong?
--
Thomas S. Chin
Start by using a good memory checker to check your system RAM. The kernels you listed are known to be stable, and the kernel stack is somewhat difficult to corrupt since it's well protected by the operating system.
Also, investigate your BIOS settings to make sure they
match your memory type and CPU-cache type. If it can be set, be sure your
BIOS has the same speed setting (60ns or 70ns) as your system RAM and
your cache type (write-back, write-through, et cetera) matches what you actually
have.
--
Chad Robinson, BRT Technical Services Corporation
chadr@brttech.com
I like color as a means of segregating data and reducing eye strain. I looked at all the escape sequence information I could find and set PS1 (where _ is a space) to:
\033[36m\u_\033[33m\W_\$_--\033[32m_The user name is cyan, the directory and root prompt are brown and the rest is green. However, when I try to edit a history command, strange things occur when backspacing and the command text becomes jumbled. What am I missing?
The shell probably doesn't care what escape sequences you use. The problem area is more likely your terminal. Investigate the terminal program you are using to log in and be sure it supports proper ANSI sequences. Be sure that it properly handles setting a color when another is already set. Never turn off colors at the end of your prompt. Try an esc[0m at the end of the line (sacrificing color for the text you type) and see if that helps.
This is especially true since a colorized ls listing causes
trouble for you. The listing is turning on and off individual colors (with
the default ls settings), and terminals that don't support it will have
problems with pre-existing color settings.
--
Chad Robinson, BRT Technical Services Corporation
chadr@brttech.com
Although my DEC Alpha NFS server and the Linux machines
all have the same local time, every
file written to the NFS partition in the Linux machines is one hour (exactly
one hour) ahead in time. For example, if both
the server and a Linux client have 20:30, and the client
writes a file to the NFS partition, the time of creation
of the file is 21:30. How can I correct this problem?
--
Jose Luis Richardo Chavez
Red Hat Linux 4.2 and 4.1
Linux adjusts the time displayed by the date command for your local time zone. It's possible to see the ``correct'' time from date, if your system's internal notion of the correct time and the time zone setting are both wrong. For example, if your internal clock is an hour fast, but your time zone is an hour behind, you'll see the behavior you described. Check the time zone output in the date command. For example:
Mon Aug 4 12:12:53 PDT 1997indicates we are currently running Pacific Daylight Time. On Red Hat systems you want /etc/localtime to be a link to a file in /usr/lib/zoneinfo.
Also, you generally want your system to store time in your local time. Edit the /etc/sysconfig/clock file, so that you have:
UTC=false ARC=trueThen go into your system's BIOS setup to check that the local time is set correctly.
How do I properly run XDM at system bootup?
--
Aris Seisums
Slackware 1.3.20
I'll assume you've got X and XDM set up properly; if not, read the man page. Most distributions provide an XDM setup that works, so you may be able to just use it. Also, make sure you can use startx to get into X after logging on in the normal way.
Next, look for a line like:
id:5:initdefaultin your /etc/inittab file. This will tell you what run level init starts at. The run level is the number in the middle. Add a line like this:
x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/xdm -nodaemonto the /etc/inittab file. For the 5 shown above, substitute the run level you're running at--then reboot.
If you want to test this first (good idea), pick a different
run level (one below) to run XDM at. Don't pick 0, 1 or 6 as these have
special meanings. Then, as root, run telinit<\!s>runlevel to
switch to that run level. If it doesn't work,
telinit<\!s>regular<\!s>runlevel will switch you
back.
--
Jeff Licquia
jeff@web.lanscape.net