Ask HN: How to regain access to my dedicated server? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to regain access to my dedicated server?

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The story: We are a team that uses a dedicated server Ubuntu 9.10 (don't say a word... "updates are for the weak"...) And the guy who was responsible for being a "sysop" recently disappeared into the abyss of dark sorcery of some kind or just watching cat videos on youtube. However he did not leave us any credentials to access the server and we need to ssh into it...

So far: I managed to find credentials to our server supplier from where I got the ips and ports we are using... Got a account for Lantronix spider KVM

I've got a working ftp account which has reading access to everything... From where I was able to see in /home directory some users...

Any input on what my options are?

P.S. All of this hustle to start the apache no comment!

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Hi,

it might be a good idea to ask your server provider/hoster if they have a rescue console. Many big provider offer this service to simply remote install any OS of your desire (or a predefined mini linux rescue shell). The rescue console mostly works like this: The hoster has an internal tftp (yes, tftp) where the server can boot any iso from. So the main boot sequence is something like this:

1: boot from network (tftp) 2: boot from medium (cd, usb, etc.) 3: boot from disk

I once had an issue with my Firewall and the usb driver that the KVM switch provided just outputted strange signs, so it was unuseable. But a quick boot into the rescue console, mounting the HD and changing the Firewall config made it all a breeze.

Greets,

Chris

Are you able to restart the box? If you have KVM access, you could restart it into single user mode (assuming it has not been disabled) and work from there

Hey thanks for your reply, I did restart the box, but once I open the console it does asks me for login/password

Can you send ctrl+alt+del through the kvm? if so, maybe this will cause it to restart so you can access the bootloader

OK, but what can you do after you get in through the bootloader?

Add "single" to the kernel command line

If you are not able to boot it into recovery (could ask you for root password) you need to edit the kernel by editing "ro" (or "ro quiet ..." something) and changing it to rw init=/bin/bash .. than boot up by pressing [ctrl]+x and voila from there just change the root password via "passwd root" restart and ta daah root password changed

Yes I was able to go trough and edit the kernel thanks a bunch, I thought I was in a bigger trouble!

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