ABSTRACT
Almost all UNIX administrators during their professional careers face the problem of a “lost root password;” occasionally a root password for some of the existing UNIX systems drops out of our control, and we are no longer able to administer that system. In a network with several hundred UNIX boxes, administered by dozens of UNIX administrators, it is not so unusual to find a “forgotten” system that nobody has taken care of lately. How it happened, and why it has happened, is another issue; the fact is that a superuser access to this very system is not possible, and we desperately need it.
