iPcop root password

The monastery need some kind of machine that keep history of internet usages, and firewall for security purpose. Robert from Hungary had set up Debain into a 600 mhz/ pII with everything code by his hand for us. He is the best in Linux I ever work with. The machine works fine but very slow and difficult for me to add new user in. It is also crash very often because the machine cannot handle the the traffic. Finally I have to stop using it.

It took me almost a year to set up the similar box with my very little knowledge. I have cried for help with no success. Last year, Nuno, a Portuguese young friend, help me to try ipcop, pfsense, m0n0wall they worked perfectly find with firewall, only ipcop that offer proxy server but it was very slow to run so I give up that project. Nuno came again during last Winter Retreat and offered to do again but I already lost interest so we didn't.

Last July Nuno came and I asked him to focus on this project again and... it succeeds...Thank for ipcop, advance proxy and Nuno. But the only problem we have was that our machine unable reboot with out pressing and hold the power button, it is impractical for our net work.

The new machine, slower one, has come from PS to replace the one that Nuno helped to set up. The problem I faced was how to save all data that I have spent many days to put in such as MAC address and ip numbers for dhcp server.

Another problem is that when I installed ipcop sometime it didn't give me a chance to put a root password, that was a serious problem for me. I have searched google and found a forum somewhere I cannot remember, I've tried to look through history to find out who post this solution but haven't found, sorry about that. Here is what I did follow his advice.


Change root password when you cannot login root account

1. Press 'a' at GRUB prompt
2. There will be a long command line, Press space bar to make some space then type 'linux single'
3. Type 'passwd'
4. Change or create the new passwod
5. Reboot

Done

Happy Me

It might sounds funny if you find this solution on a monk blog. The true to be told is: I have installed iPcop on this machine for 6 times, the first time it was succeed but I couldn't manage to restore so I decide to reinstall one more time and it stuck on -no way to create root password- wich means that I cannot do anything with this new installation.

After the 3th times of installation, I started to feel upset and irritate. I usaully stop and do something else but this time I want to see how I feel and how my feeling last. So I keep doing it for 3 more times. The feeling of upseting about "I cannot get what I want" especialy I used to get it before was so strong.

In the middle of that bad feeling, the word 'linux single' pop up in my mind but I don't know how to do it so google has come to play it part.

When I knew how to do and done it I was absolutely fogot the 3 hours bad feeling, the feeling of success was coming to fill my heart. The story doesn't end here because the main purpose of doing this is to backup and restore ipcop.