Solved Forgot root password of EC2 instance

[elgrande]

I have an FreeBSD EC2 instance running 14.3-RELEASE.
I can log in as ec2-user via SSH key file.
But I do not recall the root password. Obviously it is set since su - prompt me for a password.
Any ideas what I can do?

 

[nxjoseph@]

But I do not recall the root password. Obviously it is set since su - prompt me for a password.

AFAIK, Even if it's empty, su(1) does still prompt. So maybe it's empty?

 

[elgrande]

AFAIK, Even if it's empty, su(1) does still prompt. So maybe it's empty?

Unfortunately it is not empty.

 

[elgrande]

My current try:
Deploy another FreeBSD instance, import the zpool of the "forgotten password" instance, mount it and chroot into it.

 

[SirDice]

Doesn't that ec2-user have sudo(8) access? Not entirely sure if those images are prepared that way.

 

[elgrande]

Doesn't that ec2-user have sudo(8) access? Not entirely sure if those images are prepared that way.

Unfortunately sudo is not installed - I might have removed it though.

 

[elgrande]

Ok solved it by installing an new FreeBSD image with UFS, then imported the zpool of the forgotten-password-image, mounted it and chrooted to it, followed by a passwd.
(with a new ZFS FreeBSD image this did not work, it got confused by the 2 zpools with the same default name)

 

[SirDice]

it got confused by the 2 zpools with the same default name

Import it with -R <altroot> and -t to give it a temporary new name. Or else things are definitely going to overlap.