How To Change Root Password If You Don't Know It

I'm completely new to the whole Dreambox scene so forgive me if I'm teaching people how to suck eggs.

I got my first Dreambox today, a DM500S, and found that I couldn't log in as root. Seems the little bugger is set up as a cardsharing machine and the bloke I bought it off won't answer my emails asking for the root password. He seems to think I'll be happy to pay 300 bucks a year for the privilige of using his Cardserver.


So, I had to go hunting for ways to reset root without flashing the machine. And here's what I came up with after a *lot* of googling.


First off, you need to have TuxBox commander. You can download it via the Blue Panel then ADDONS. Just select the Gemini Server and, when it's downloaded the catalogue, select PLUGINS and download Tuxbox Commander.

Once thats installed you can access it through Blue Panel, PLUGINS (Tools).

Fire it up and navigate to var/etc

Select the passwd file. Hit 4 to edit it.

You'll see something like this:

root:$1$$3er43323sBBCAw.ofBbt.:0:0::/:/bin/sh
sshd:*:65532:65534::/:/bin/false
ftp:*:65533:65534::/:/bin/false
nobody:*:65534:65534::/:/bin/false



Your root password will obviously be different to the above. What you need to do is replace the first line with this:

root:$1$$34NPeumc9sBBCAw.oUaM80:0:0::/:/bin/sh

And you have to be *exact*.

That resets the password to "dreambox" (without the quotes - password is now dreambox) and you're good to go.