bad customers and court cases

Thu Jan 30 14:28:33 PST 2003

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 01:35:00PM -0800, alvin at maggie.linux-consulting.com wrote:
> 
> hi ya sysadminers

> donno if this is off topic or not...but am betting
> that some of you been thru this loop before... 
> and maybe entertaining to those that havent yet had the pleasure
> of bad clients

> just curious if any of you have taken your ex-clients to 
> court ( small claims in my case )
> 
> anyway .. they didnt pay their invoices..
> 	so i filed suit... and the fun starts
> 
> they in turn claiming all kinds of jibberish for non-payment
> long after 1-2 month the contract ended
> 
> - one of their made up invoices is to bill me for not providing
>   passwds ... that they spent $3500 to get root acces amongst
>   3 people w/ PhDs
> 	
> - yes, i told um to do  the following on linux boxes
> 
> 	reboot
> 	lilo# init 1
> 	# passwd
> 	reboot
> 
> 	but their wanna-be nt weinnies dont get it...some of them
> 	w/ PhDs ... actually lots of um "claim" to have PhDs
> 
> - and it took them 3 weeks to move a working lan from the old office
>   to their new offices...
> 	- i say just change the wan ip# on the router and they would 
> 	have been done
> 
> - other hilarious part ... they moved their dns servers at
> 	networksolutions and blame me and billed me for going offline :-)
> 	( they had fri-sat-sun to make sure its all right.. but didnt do
> 	so )
> 
> =
> = anyway... how you can help ??
> =
> 	- please forward me offline, that you can get into a linux
> 	box ( when you're sitting in front of it ) ... that you can
> 	get into any linux box in a matter of 2-3 minutes
> 	( few seconds from the lilo prompt )
> 		- only first names will be used to show that
> 		people ( competent ones ) can get into any linux box in
> 		a few minutes

	As the Linux Gazette Answer Guy I've answered this question MANY
	times.  It's readily found in google with the phrase: 

		linux lost password

	... (4th link down when I just did it now).

	Here it is summarized for you:

			LILO: type <stanza label> init=/bin/sh rw
			mount /usr # ignore errors if /usr not sep. fs
			passwd
			<type new passwd>
			<type new passwd again>
			sync
			umount /usr # ignore error
			mount -o remount,ro /
			exec /sbin/init 6

	Actually uses a whole nine steps --- two of which are harmlessly
	superfluous on systems where /usr isn't a separate filesystem.

> 	- nope.. i didnt install any passwd to lilo ...

	I've written more detailed description of how to break in using
	a rescue disc/diskette, mostly:

			fdisk -l
			for each type 83 partition:
				mount it on /mnt/tmp
				look for a /mnt/tmp/etc directory 
				(and confirm that this is really your desired rootfs)
				if found rootfs:
						mount *its* /usr on /mnt/tmp/usr
						break
			cd /mnt/tmp
			chroot . /bin/sh
			passwd
			<type new password a couple times>
			exit
			cd /
			umount /mnt/tmp/usr
			umount /mnt/tmp
			reboot

	... about a baker's dozen steps to this procedure, complicated by
	a loop, conditional and break while searching for the rootfs.

> -- putting on the asbestos just in case :-)

> thanx 
> alvin

 Can you tell I've been doing exactly this kind of support blindly for 
 lots of people all over the world for about six years?

--
Jim Dennis 