Harv, Like my old man always said -- everthing is easy once you know how. You may be a contruction worker but you most ceratainly are not a dumb-assed construction worker. Your instructions were fine. I did not mean to denigrate anything anyone said. My use of "brutal" for using vi was intended as a joke. I was just imagining being stuck at a machine I could not login to and what would be the very easiest way out of it and how I would communicate that to a person newly exposed to a Linux computer. I apologize if I've caused offense. Gerry -- gsker at skerbitz.org On Tue, 1 Jan 2019, harv wrote: > Mon, 31 Dec 2018 12:00:01 -0600 >> Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 21:08:32 -0600 (CST) >> From: gerry <gsker at skerbitz.org> >> To: TCLUG Mailing List <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> >> Subject: Re: [tclug-list] tclug-list Digest, Vol 168, Issue 8 >> Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.21.1812302034100.19075 at skerbitz.org> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed >> >> I'm pretty sure I read an email from Danny saying he/she was a noob. >> I can't find a tclug list archive to verify that, though.... >> > Yes, he did say he was a newbie. > So what? > We all were at one point. Did you learn anything by avoiding exposure > to that thing? > >> At the very least we should not ask a novice user to use vim to mess with a >> shadow file. That's just brutal. >> > What's brutal about it? > Especially since I gave instructions right down to the key strokes > required for vi/vim and pointed out exactly which field of shadow file > to delete. > I'm just a dumb assed construction worker. If I can figure it out, it > can't be that hard. > >> If the command >> mount -o rw,remount / >> >> works for them, then the user can just run >> passwd danny >> to change the password for the "danny" user. >> > Another possible solution. Almost wish I had thought of it. > >> From a reply from gerry to iznogood: >> I dug into how someone might do this from the LiveDVD while doing as >> much as possible without the command line. >> >> I couldn't even mount the drive in that interface without the terminal. > > Don't know what file manager is on LiveDVD but Thunar,Dolphin and > PCmanFM file managers can mount drives and some live distros allow for > installation of software- just for session, gone with a reboot. It does > require enough ram to work though. > So if LiveDVD allows installation of software and there is enough ram > one could install one of those file managers if available but still need > root permissions for passwd or to edit shadow file. > > harv > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >