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Troubleshooting Loss of the Root Password

Problem

If you forget the root password for the switch, you can use the password recovery procedure to reset the root password.

Note: You need physical access to the switch to recover the root password.

Solution

To recover the root password:

1. Power off your switch by unplugging the power cord or turning off the power at the wall switch.
2. Insert one end of the Ethernet cable into the serial port on the management device and connect the other end to the console port on the back of the switch. See Figure 1

   Figure 1: Connecting to the Console Port on the EX Series Switch

   
3. On the management device, start your asynchronous terminal emulation application (such as Microsoft Windows Hyperterminal) and select the appropriate COM port to use (for example, COM1).
4. Configure the port settings as follows:
   • Bits per second: 9600
   • Data bits: 8
   • Parity: None
   • Stop bits: 1
   • Flow control: None
5. Power on your switch by plugging in the power cord or turning on the power at the wall switch.
6. When the following prompt appears, press the Spacebar to access the switch's bootstrap loader command prompt:

   Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or space bar for command prompt.
   Booting [kernel] in 1 second...
   

7. At the following prompt, type boot -s to start up the system in single-user mode:
   
   loader> boot -s
   
8. At the following prompt, type recovery to start the root password recovery procedure:
   
   Enter full path name of shell or 'recovery' for root password recovery or RETURN for /bin/sh: recovery
   

   A series of messages describe consistency checks, mounting of filesystems, and initialization and checkout of management services. Then the CLI prompt appears.

9. Enter configuration mode in the CLI:
   
   user@switch> configure
   
10. Set the root password. For example:
    
    user@switch# set system root-authentication plain-text-password
11. At the following prompt, enter the new root password. For example:
    
    New password: juniper1

    Retype new password:

12. At the second prompt, reenter the new root password.
13. If you are finished configuring the network, commit the configuration.
    
    root@switch# commit

    commit complete

14. Exit configuration mode in the CLI.
    
    root@switch# exit
15. Exit operational mode in the CLI.
    
    root@switch> exit
16. At the prompt, enter y to reboot the switch.
    
    Reboot the system? [y/n] y