Lost admin password on my libiquity taurinus x2000 with trisquel

23 réponses [Dernière contribution]
Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

As the title says I lost my admin password and am locked out, I've read through this thread https://trisquel.info/en/forum/locked-out-admin-log

Since I bought this computer with trisquel installed on it as well as libreboot I'm not sure if the same process in the posts mentioned above is way to go. I tried creating the live USB through startup disk creator while logged in as guest but get a error message no permissions to erase disk and the make disk button is not active. It could be the USB stick I used, I was able to format it but it has a partition I couldn't erase so will try a new USB stick and see if it works.

I don't have any data saved under admin so if there is a easier way to reset this thing I don't care if that admin account is lost. I just want to make sure I don't mess up how its configured with libreboot and I am pretty new to Linux which is why I get this system preconfigured.

Any help is appreciated, I need this thing to work so I can work ; )

Mahalo

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/31/2014

>x2000
>Linux

Oh well..

Yeah follow the thread. I want a RYFM X20000 too :)

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

It's a beautiful system, especially when I'm not locked out of it. I was hesitant about fully switching to a free life so. Kept my MacBook for a while and just sold it last week to go full freedom full Time but forgot to decrypt my passwords that I had stored on my MacBook before I formatted it. Now I'm just a guest to freedom : (

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

d

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

I followed this https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/how-create-liveusb
and keep getting a failed to install message. not sure what i'm doing wrong

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/31/2014

You don't need GUI for this. Actually GUIs in my experience are terrible with it.

Insert the fat32 formatted USB stick in your laptop and open the terminal and follow this:

lsblk

look up and note the name assigned to your usb stick. sba is usually your hard drive, it will be either sdb or sdc. For the arguments, or better yet, example's sake, say your stick is sdb. For the same reason say your Trisquel ISO is in ~/Downloads/

To write the ISO on your stick all you need is one single command, one that has never ever failed me on any hardware and with any ISO:

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/Trisquel_ISO.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M ; sync

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

Tried this, says unable to change root gid: operation not permitted

Is this because I'm signed in as guest?

Thanks for your help.

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

You can create a live CD/DVD/USB (with GNU/Linux on it, whatever the distribution) from another system (even from Windows or MacOS) too.

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

So nothing I tried was working from my guest account in trisquel so I made a live USB on a windows computer and reinstalled trisquel on my x200 now I am in control of my computer but lost libreboot when I reinstalled trisquel.

So I guess I need to reconfigure libreboot now and should be good?

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

You did not have to reinstall the operating system. To change a password (not knowing the current one) using a live system, you could have followed the instructions I gave in the post you linked to at the beginning of this thread: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/locked-out-admin-log#comment-105213

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

Super confused, is libreboot still on my system somewhere or do I need to download it and install. How do I see what bios is running after new installation of trisquel

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/31/2014

The reinstallation of the OS should not change your low level firmware. Your PC is still librebooted, mate.

For doubts related to libreboot, try their Irc channel on freenode.

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

I'm just not sure where to start since it was already flashed with libreboot I'm not sure which installation instructions to follow on libreboot website. Yes I'm supernoob,

Anonymous (non vérifié)
Anonymous

When you start your computer does it a screen briefly pop up that looks like the image I attached? If so, Libreboot is still installed. If this isn't the case, Libreboot wasn't even installed on your computer in the first place.

photo_2017-08-04_12-53-57.jpg
Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

The boot menu flashes but doesn't have that graphic on it just black background, does that matter?

Anonymous (non vérifié)
Anonymous

It doesn't matter if the background is black; as long as the lines of text are exactly the same as on the picture I made.

Anonymous (non vérifié)
Anonymous

You can pause the screen with the up and down arrow keys if it flashes past to fast.

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

Cool, looks like I'm all good. Thanks, turns out to have been a good thing to go through this because I was able to setup disk encryption when I reinstalled trisquel and got to meet you fine folks. Now on to further learning and enjoying the free life.

Peace!!

libreleah
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/03/2017

Hi, are you the same person who emailed me earlier? Regardless, someone emailed me today with the exact same question about how to recover access to their user account.

I'll paste what I emailed to that person:

If it isn't encrypted, then you could do this:

boot a live USB distro (e.g. trisquel)
mount the OS drive
edit /etc/shadow:

Make your entry in there look something like this:

koude::::

(koude is the username is this example. it's the dutch word for "cold")

edit /etc/passwd

Your entry will look something like:

koude:x:1007:1007::/home/koude:

Change it to:

koude::1007:1007::/home/koude:

(I removed the "x")

then boot up the system, but with this kernel parameter added:
init=/bin/bash

Then you have a root shell at boot.
You can then do:

passwd yourusername

You can do this on any user account on a GNU+Linux system. This will
completely remove your password. Then you can reset it to whatever you
like.

NOTE: Trisquel has no root account by default. To enable the root
account (during normal operation) you can simply set a passwd:

passwd root

This ought to work. I've used this to break into my systems from time
to time, when I forget my password.

libreleah
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/03/2017

Setting /etc/shadow and removing the x in /etc/passwd removes the password entirely, so after that it should be possible to even boot normally (even without init=/bin/bash), log in without a password, and then you can just set another password.

This also works on encrypted systems, in the situation where you know how to decrypt the drive but you lost your password to your user account, and you have the ability to mount the root file system and edit those 2 files.

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

Is there something wrong with https://trisquel.info/forum/locked-out-admin-log#comment-105213 i.e. with 'chroot'ing the root partition and simply running 'passwd koude'? That looks easier and less prone to error.

libreleah
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/03/2017

good old chroot

i always forget about that

that's probably a better/easier way

Librelover
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/02/2017

Yes that was me, thanks again

libreleah
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 04/03/2017

by the way, if your X200 is from libiquity, make sure to update to the latest upstream libreboot from libreboot.org. someone emailed me recently and they had a very old version of libreboot on their laptop from that company, which reset their clock to 1970 on newer linux kernels; newer versions of libreboot fix this, and other issues.