Hi,
I lost my password on few critical sun servers, I have root password though
I don't want to change my password but for some reasons I would like to decrypt my exiting password. Is it possbile and if yes how?
Thanks a million in advance
Your question doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Why would you want to crack your own passwd? If you really need to crack a unix passwd, google john the ripper
NO.
the password is stored as a one-way hash.
there is no decrypt becasue it is not encrypted as such.
If you're using solaris, with a shadow file for passwords with encryption set to one of the encrytion standards that are supported, john the ripper will crack the password in the shadow file. Not sure what robsonde is talking about ... I've used it a million times to check users passwords.
there is no decrypt.
john the ripper will crack by testing many times.
john the ripper many run for months with out a result.
robsonde has it right. If something is encrypted there must be a way to decrypt it. The algorithm used by unix for passwords is a one-way hash that cannot be reversed. JtR works by trying all possible passwords until it finds one that happens to result in the same hashed value. That is not what is meant by decryption. I will say the JtR is very clever at guessing weak passwords though.
We are required to used strong passwords here at work. To verify compliance I have been asked to run JtR. So far:
guesses: 1 time: 20:17:21:23 c/s: 324328 trying: lmpsps* - lmpsos!
After 20 days, 17 hours, 21 minutes, and 23 seconds, JtR has guessed one password. Note that the author of JtR chose the verb "guess", not "crack", not "decrypt" or anything like that. It may take decades to guess all of the remaining 186 passwords. And I downloaded dozens of carefully chosen dictionaries to help JtR out, which is the only reason that JtR even has one guess so far.
I have had JtR running on a SUN T5220.
after 8 weeks...
about 50% gussed, almost all of them dictionary words.
a few users where using there own username as a password.