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Suddenly, my Unix root user account seems to be disabled. At startup, the system presents a prompt to change the date, but the maintenance prompt to insert the password does not show. My OS is Unix SCO_SV 5.0.7.

I can't enter single user mode. How can I enter single user mode at startup?

peterh
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PEDRO A ALFONSO O
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    The information provided is contradictory. So far I don't think the problem has anything to do with root account or any form of restriction. Can you instead focus on what you're actually getting on the screen? – Julie Pelletier Apr 28 '17 at 13:32
  • Ok let me rephrase. My OS is Unix SCO_SV 5.0.7 in Identification prompt, i write my user account which is root, and when i enter the password it says root account disable, that's it, I can't enter. I need a way to enable it again. – PEDRO A ALFONSO O Apr 28 '17 at 14:07
  • One way to resolve this, is to enter in single user mode at startup, but it never gives me that prompt to do it, i just see the date prompt, and after that it continues with the boot process. – PEDRO A ALFONSO O Apr 28 '17 at 14:08
  • Is root the only user account you have access to? – schaiba Apr 28 '17 at 14:22
  • No, actually i have another, the one i use for regular work which is 'pedro'. But with 'pedro' user it runs a COBOL program directly, which means i have no access to the system command line prompt. – PEDRO A ALFONSO O Apr 28 '17 at 14:25
  • Supposedly, pressing Enter at "Boot" will prompt you, but I have no way of verifying this. If you have some means of modifying the filesystem, you could temporarily replace the initdefault runlevel with S in /etc/inittab, but then if you could modify the filesystem you could just re-enable the root account, so I assume that isn't an option – Fox Apr 28 '17 at 14:41
  • it could be an option, could you please give a step by step procedure to do that? – PEDRO A ALFONSO O Apr 28 '17 at 14:54
  • All capital nicks look bad, I suggest to become simply "Pedro A Alfonso O", or simply "Pedro Alfonso". – peterh Apr 28 '17 at 16:38
  • @PEDRO was that comment directed at me? If so, there should be a line in /etc/initdefault that contains lbl:n:initdefault:, where lbl is a label of up to four characters, and n is a runlevel, e.g. 2. You would want to change the runlevel to S. Then reboot, re-enable the root account with passwd, and restore the original /etc/inittab. – Fox Apr 30 '17 at 07:09

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