John the Ripper (aka lost password :-P)

English Applications
#1

Hi,

I’ve lost my root password in openSUSE 10.3. I know it’s simple to reset it from a liveCD, but if at all possible I’d like to recover it instead. I use fairly strong passwords with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, etc., so plain brute force isn’t an option, especially on the old Celeron 2.8 GHz in question.

So here’s the thing: I remember the first 5 and last 6 characters. Using John the Ripper (or a something else if you know of a better one), how would I go about creating a rule to guess a few characters in the middle? Is that even possible? Thanks in advance.

#2

if you get tired of trying to find the missing bits, try:
http://wiki.suselinuxsupport.de/wikka.php?wakka=HowToResetlostrootpassword

caveat: i’ve not used those directions, but i guess they will work…

–
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315)
A Texan in Denmark

#3

Thanks for the suggestion, DenverD. I actually just found my password a roundabout way, so the immediate crisis is averted. But I’d really like to learn John anyway. Does anyone know of a good tutorial explaining John’s wordlist rules in depth? (For instance, how to take just one word and operate on just the middle section multiple times.) Thanks.