On 11/22/24 11:56, The David wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there anyway to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

Boot off rescue media, mount the victim's / partition somewhere, then edit <mount_point>/etc/shadow to change the second field (deliminated by colons)
to the null string. An asterisk means "this user cannot log in", so not
that. Then sync, unmount, and reboot. The first two steps may be implied
in the third, but it won't hurt if they're done explicitly.

So no, you can't recover it easily (the encryption is one way), but you can reset it.

--
How often have I said to you that when you
have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth?
-- Arthur C. Doyle as Sherlock Holmes in "The Sign of the Four"

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On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 04:56:23PM +0000, The David wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there anyway to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

Which password?

If it is some user's or root's password, there are several ways
1. add "init=/bin/sh" to your GRUB kernel command line
2. take out your disk and mount it in another system
3. boot a rescue system (e.g. your Debian installer in rescue
mode), mount your disk

If you are a beginner, option 3 seems the easiest. In all three
cases, you want to edit your /etc/passwd to remove the password.
Then you can log in without password. Don't forget to set a new
one!

If it is a disk encryption password, things are much more difficult
to impossible.

Just ask if you need more details.

Cheers
--
tomás

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eben@gmx.us wrote:

On 11/22/24 11:56, The David wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there anyway to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

Boot off rescue media, mount the victim's / partition somewhere, then edit <mount_point>/etc/shadow to change the second field (deliminated by colons) to the null string. An asterisk means "this user cannot log in", so not that. Then sync, unmount, and reboot. The first two steps may be implied
in the third, but it won't hurt if they're done explicitly.

So no, you can't recover it easily (the encryption is one way), but you can reset it.

If it isn't encrypted:

Boot. Pause the boot on the bootloader, and add to the kernel
command line:

init=/bin/bash

Let it continue booting.

When it gives you a shell, mount the root partition read/write:

mount -o remount,rw /

Change the root password:

passwd

sync

reboot

You now know the root password, and after logging in as root can
change any other user's password.

-dsr-

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On 22 Nov 2024 12:40 -0500, from eben@gmx.us:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We
are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there
anyway to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

Boot off rescue media, mount the victim's / partition somewhere, then edit <mount_point>/etc/shadow to change the second field (deliminated by colons) to the null string.

That, of course, assumes that what's being talked about is a user
account password.

If what you are talking about is instead a LUKS passphrase, then a
very different piece of advice applies: DO NOT REBOOT THE SYSTEM UNDER
ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

_Given root_, the volume key can be extracted on a running system
where the container is unlocked and either used directly or to create
a corresponding LUKS header with a known passphrase; but once the
container is locked (either by luksClose, or by rebooting), that
possibility is lost and the data becomes inaccessible without a valid
container passphrase.

So: _exactly_ which "password" are you referring to?

--
Michael Kjörling
🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se

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On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 16:56:23 +0000
The David <thedavid86@hotmail.com> wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We are
moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there anyway
to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

You can boot the machine with a live system, mount the filesystem to
/mnt and chroot into it, then set a new password with ``passwd''. HTH

kind regards
Frank

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Hi,

While people here can and will attempt to talk you through resolving
your problem…

On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 04:56:23PM +0000, The David wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company

This is an ancient kernel version and 32-bit (as denoted by 686-pae) is
also inadvisable. The next stable release of Debian (coming next year)
will not have 32-bit kernel or installer so you're going to need to
switch in the near future anyway to keep up to date.

We are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there
anyway to recover this without losing data?

If you're running a business that needs this computer and have no one
on-site who can sort out a forgotten password I think you need paid
help. With the best will in the world from unpaid volunteers such as us,
that's not a way to run a business.

You might like to try to find assistance through the Debian consultants
page and/or mailing list:

https://www.debian.org/consultants/
https://lists.debian.org/debian-consultants/

Thanks,
Andy

--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

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On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 9:27 AM The David <thedavid86@hotmail.com> wrote:

We have been using the debian 3.2.0-4-686-pae for our company. We are moving to another state and we forgot the password. Is there anyway to recover this without losing data? Thank you.

Yikes! That kernel goes back to Debian 7 - released 2013-05-04 https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2013/msg00002.html
EOL 2016-04-25, EOL LTS 2018-05-31, EOL ELTS ~2020-06-30 https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases

And no, you can't recover password(s), but you can reset.
If it's password of non-root user, reset it via root account, e.g.:
# passwd name_of_user_login_to_reset
If it's root password, can boot to single user mode or maintenance
mode or the like,
for Debian 7, default init was still sysv, so can boot to single user
mode by passing additional kernel parameter of S (or s)
if that doesn't prompt you for password, should be good at that point,
mount the filesystems, e.g.:
# mount -a
Make sure root (/) filesystem is mounted rw, if it's still mounted ro,
then to remount it rw:
# mount -o remount,rw /
And then change the root password:
# passwd
If that boot to single user mode insists upon root password,
or if you're using systemd init system, can instead of parameter of S
(or s) at boot,
pass additional parameter of:
init=/bin/sh
That will get you root shell without needing to enter password.
You'll then need to mount the relevant filesystem(s), and rw as applicable, chroot into such, and then likewise reset password with the passwd
command run as root.
If you're being kept out by a GRUB password you don't know,
can boot off ISO or network, e.g. recovery or install environment,
and use that similar to the above to mount and access the target filesystem(s), generally use chroot to get into them, and then as root the passwd
command to reset password(s).

If the password you lost is for LUKS encryption, you're screwed -
restore from backup(s). Only possible exception on that
might be if the host is still up and running and hasn't been rebooted
and you have access to root shell,
or if the password happens to be so weak you can find it via brute
force attempts at it.

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