Xserve: Reset Password Command Does Not Work With RAID Volumes

Symptom

When the startup disk is a RAID volume, the Reset Password command does not work.

Note: The Reset Password command is found in the Apple menu when started up from the Mac OS X Server Installation CD.


Solution

When the root password has been lost (see Note 1), follow these steps:

1. Start up in single-user mode by holding the Command-S key combination. See Note 2.
2. At the prompt (#), type: fsck and mount -uw /
3. Press Return.
4. Type: nicl -raw /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb
5. Press Return.
6. Type: -create /users/root passwd ""
7. Press Return.
8. Type: reboot
9. Press Return.
10. Log in as root.
11. Open Server Admin.
12. Choose Show Users & Groups List from the Users & Groups menu.
13. Click the checkbox to select the "Show System Users & Groups" option.
14. Select the user named System Administrator (which is root).
15. Click Edit.
16. Enter the new password.
17. Click Save.

Notes

1. If the root password is still known and you only need to reset Admin passwords, then log in to the server as root and use the Users pane of System Preferences to change passwords. For a description of the difference between root and Admin passwords, see technical document 106361, "Mac OS X 10.0, 10.1: Password Does Not Work As Expected After a Change".

2. You can get additional description of this step from technical document 106388, "Mac OS X 10.0: How to Start up in Single-User or Verbose Mode".