Topic: Resetting Admin Password

[Richard Bruce]

Hi,

There was a thread earlier in this forum (July 2000) about re-setting the admin password, however the method given there (Charlie Brady's) no longer applies in e-smith 4.1.1. Is there a similar method for the current version?

I've been having a problem with Apache access to my e-smith-manager screen (you can follow the saga on the General Discussion forum, thread: Locked out of Web Admin Access). I'm too new at Linux and e-smith to know if my problems extend from a genuine "bug" or whether it's just user error, but the symptoms are I can access e-smith from the console using both admin and root, but if I use the web-based manager screen it fails to authenticate my password. I'm slowly and painfully going bald over this and am contemplating starting again from scratch, but I'd prefer not to as I'd entered over 100 users, groups pseudonyms etc and I can't get at the manager screen to back it up! I'm also cursed with a determined streak and would prefer to know what's gone wrong

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Richard

[Fennec KP]

maybe you shopuld take a look at /home/e-smith config files ?
Fennec

[Fennec KP]

what browser are you using ? on what machine ? did you tried on an other one ?

[Richard Bruce]

I've tried using IE5.0 on Mac, IE5.5 on PC and Netscape 4.5 on Mac!

Problem occurred after I had configured some 80 users, groups etc. It had been working fine up to that point!

Thanks

[Fennec KP]

did you modify something about ip_fw or ip_masq ? i belive atalk needs that ...

[Richard Bruce]

No, I haven't modified anything! All I was doing was adding user accounts via a web-browser. The problem definitely seems to be withis the Apache authentication, but I know zilch about Apache (at the moment ). Is there an equivalent to "passwd" that will reset the Apache authentication password for admin? or is there a way for another user account, with a known password, to take on the attributes of admin, just so I can get back in? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree but it seems as if Apache thinks that either user admin doesn't exist, or that it uses another password.

I've been all through the /home/e-smith/configuration files, and a lot of other files besides to see if there is any useful setting. Closest I've come to is the users file, but from the look of it it is only used by the templates to rebuild Linux accounts. Is there a way to force the running of a template somewhere that will rebuild all of the user account data and re-synch the web and console passwords?

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Richard

[Richard Bruce]

YEEEHA! &deity bless 4.11 upgrade facility!
I finally decided, after 3 days, that I was getting nowhere fast and decided to bite the bullet and re-install. However I decided to try the upgrade facility, as I reckoned I had nothing else to lose. It must work by copying all of the user account, ibay settings etc to a "safe" file and then restoring them (I got exactly the same responses as I had when I used a desktop restore to move the users to the current server). I know I haven't got to the bottom of *why* this happened, but I'm just glad to get my admin screens back!

Looking through the fora I've found several postings of similar things happening, usually to "newbies" like myself. Is there a bug out there that is causing this, or am I just unlucky

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread in case someone has any ideas as to what happened.

Richard

[Richard Bruce]

It's happened again

I created a new i-bay, got the "please wait" message which then returned with the login prompt which refused to accept the admin password.

Anyone got any ideas what can be happening here? If I've got to re-install the system every day I'd be better off going back to manual distribution and Outlook, but as they say on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire"  "I don't wanna do that"

HELP!!!!

Richard

[Alejandro]

if you have access to root and admin from console
you could try to change admin/root password from the text based browser in the admin console.
doing this will update de credentials database? process interrupted somewhow somewere??
In spanish we say something likeThis: a nail takes of another nail and here we could say a newbie helps another newbie!
I had same problem last monday and tryed that treak.
(I had the idea (?) I haven't waited enough time to a panel to close and that could be the reason to not update password files)
I happened when i was using the web based manager, so if you have been using it many times (80 users is many times) you could have touch the keyboard before a panel gives you the succes repport,
Any way  if you think is a bug tel the guys at bugs@something.... (the address is in main e-smith page) Or you will be caught by  Charly who will tell you to do that

hope it helps!

Alejandro

[Richard Bruce]

Alejandro,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'd already tried that and still got locked out!

The guys (and gals I would assume ) at e-Smith have indeed picked up on this and have given me a work-around. I'm pretty certain that once they are happy they will update the patches for this.

The problem for us "newbies" is that we don't know enough to be sure that we have found a minor bug, but we know enough to realise it doesn't work!! I'm probably not alone in being reticent posting to a "bugs" forum until I'm 100% sure that it is a bug and not just a set-up error. Thankfully the more experienced users can normally point us in the right direction.

I've even been brave enough to post a couple of suggestions to try and help out people that have experienced problems I'd experienced and managed to find a work around for. There's no point in re-inventing the wheel. I've discovered that this seems to be a very common attitude in the "open source" movement. Long may it continue!

Thanks again for the help.

Richard

[Charlie Brady]

Richard Bruce wrote:

> The guys (and gals I would assume ) at e-Smith have
> indeed picked up on this and have given me a work-around. I'm
> pretty certain that once they are happy they will update the
> patches for this.

Thanks to yourself and Philip Stinson. The problem you have discovered for us is that there is a maximum supported number of groups of 28. The linux kernel only supports a maximum of 32 groups per user, and we add the "admin" user to every group you define (plus a number of system groups). We are developing a patch which will enforce that limit via the manager.

> I've even been brave enough to post a couple of suggestions
> to try and help out people that have experienced problems I'd
> experienced and managed to find a work around for. There's no
> point in re-inventing the wheel. I've discovered that this
> seems to be a very common attitude in the "open source"
> movement. Long may it continue!

With people around with your experiences and attitude, the prospects are certainly good!

Thanks for your help

Regards

Charlie