root GUI password keeps resetting

[Douglas Rieth]

well just want to put out there that i am sorry if there is another thread with this problem solved, could not find it. So every time i have set a root password for the GUI. I log-out, attempt to log back in and the password i just made doesn't work. I reset to default at console. make a password for root. log out, attempt to log back in again the password i just entered doesn't work. I have reset at console using command 7 and 8 multiple times. I have no idea why this keeps happening.

 

[cyberjock]

Do you have any weird characters on your password? Try password123456 and see if that works.

 

[DrKK]

Douglas:

We had a guy with this exact problem last week in the IRC channel.

Turned out, he was confusing two FreeNAS installs, and was accessing the wrong GUI. You're sure you're not making some accidentally oops like that?

 

[Douglas Rieth]

Do you have any weird characters on your password? Try password123456 and see if that works.

Ok so just reset it again put a simple password like 12345 and still did not work.

Douglas:

We had a guy with this exact problem last week in the IRC channel.

Turned out, he was confusing two FreeNAS installs, and was accessing the wrong GUI. You're sure you're not making some accidentally oops like that?​

​

So how would i know i made a double install? would it show up on the console? would i have two IP's?​

 

[cyberjock]

No, he's saying they installed Freenas on 2 different machines, changed the password on machine 2, then tried to login on machine 1 with the new password. I think you can see how that might not work so well. ;)

All I can say is that the problem isn't occurring for anyone else, so I have to assume there's user error involved somewhere/somehow.

 

[Hollajandro]

I have this problem as well after upgrading from 9.0. The GUI does not accept the password, but the password works for the root account via ssh.

 

[DrKK]

The GUI does not accept the password, but the password works via ssh?

What browser are you using, sir?

 

[Hollajandro]

I have tried using Chrome and Internet Explorer.

 

[DrKK]

Please try Firefox. Internet Explorer is known to not work with the GUI. Chrome is supposed to work, but my understanding is that Firefox is best. You know the *ONLY* login you can use on the GUI is root, right?

 

[Hollajandro]

Well no wonder. I didn't realize the "admin" account was defunct now. Sorry for my misinformation.

 

[DrKK]

I believe this change occurred between 9.1.1 and 9.2.0. If you had skipped 9.2.0 and gone directly to 9.2.1, you may not have seen the message.

 

[jwkb]

I am wondering what happened after my upgrade from 9.1.? tp 9.2.1.3. I have skipped 9.2.0 too...

First:
I noticed that now I can reset the WebGUI-(root)-password via WebGUI - but it is not kept. Not after WebGUI-log-out, not after rebooting the system.
Must be a bug - or is it a feature?

Second:
On the console, when I start the shell, I now become instantly ROOT. I think that wasn't before with the older version.

Now I start understanding the meaning of this information written in the manual:
the only way to access a shell as root is to gain physical access to the console menu or to access the web shell within the administrative GUI. This means that the FreeNAS® system should be kept physically secure

I am a bit frightened now that it is possible that someone with physical access can just switch it on and has access to the console without any security...

 

[cyberjock]

We've had several users claim they couldn't reset their root password and keep the setting. It was user error in the end for every case. I can tell you that changing passwords are permanent.

As for local access, you have ALWAYS had root access from the box locally. It makes sense though. If they have physical access to the box they could easily take out the hard drives, hack the box to give them root with a bootable key, etc. Even rebooting the machine you can boot in single user mode, which is not able to be disabled and allows you to do almost anything. Physical access breaks all forms of security(even encryption for a determined individual in some situations). If someone is able to walk up to your box and use it without authorization, the least of your security problems are the fact that you have root access from the console. Physical access shouldn't be allowed to begin with, regardless of the OS used.

 

[warri]

You can disable the Console Menu in the Advanced Settings tab. Then you can't start the shell from the console any more. But keep in mind, if somebody has physical access to your box they'll probably find an easy way around those precautions.

Regarding the password issue: How did you change the password? Did you select the "root" user and changed it there?

 

[cyberjock]

Thanks warri. I was going to write that, but then forgot when I started talking about how physical access is bad.

 

[jwkb]

Thank you for notes on physical access.

Regarding the password issue:

On the console, I selected "reset web GUI password" - then I entered the new password on the web GUI (twice)...

But it is not working (even with a row just of numbers). Any idea what is going wrong?

 

[dlavigne]

That may be a bug if it is not working from the console. If you create a bug report at bugs.freenas.org, post the issue number here.

 

[pttymuth]

This problem is affecting me as well. I've pretty much gone through all the steps the user in this post has described. Still there seems to be no way to get the password to stick. I can just deal with it now because I shouldn't need access to even the WebGUI all the time.

Here is some information about my system:
Build FreeNAS-9.2.1.5-RELEASE-x64 (80c1d35)
Platform AMD Turion(tm) II Neo N40L Dual-Core Processor
Memory 8042MB

 

[pttymuth]

See https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/4960

 

[diedrichg]

The next time you can access the gui make sure that in the user settings for the root user that 'allow login for root user' (or whatever it says) is enabled.