password

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> hello  ive got a problem login to freebsd. i had a copy  of freebsd 
> given me and when i installed it  it  asks me  for 
> a login name and password. is there a way of  findin out the login   
> name and password?

Well, if you are right in the middle of the installation process,
then it is asking you to make up a password.   During the installation
it asks for a password for root.  You should normally create one
you can remember, but that is hard to guess.

If you are past that stage and you did not create a password for root
during installation, then probably you can log in using 'root' for
the id and without any password (eg just hit return/enter without typing
any password).   If that works, then change the root password right away 
since root has complete control over the whole system.  You wouldn't want 
to leave that sitting around for the cat to wander over the keys at a bad 
time (or an attacker to try out).

If that doesn't work, then a password was probably created during the
install, but you don't remember it.   In that case, and if you have
access to the console,  you need to do a boot to single user and 
then change the root password and also maybe create a working account
for yourself.   How to do these things are well covered in the
FreeBSD handbook which is available online on the FreeBSD website.

////jerry