This article describes how to recover a lost or forgotten root password on EX Series switches.
NOTE: You need physical access to the switch to recover the root password. This is done by direct console access or through a console server to the console port on the EX switch.
To recover the root password, perform the following steps:
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Power off your switch by unplugging the power cord or turning off the power at the wall switch.
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Insert one end of the Ethernet cable into the serial port on the management device and connect the other end to the console port at the back of the switch.
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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).
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Configure port settings as follows:
- Bits per second: 9600
- Data bits: 8
- Parity: None
- Stop bits: 1
- Flow control: None
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Power on your switch by plugging in the power cord or turning on the power at the wall switch.
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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...
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At the following prompt, type boot -s
to start up the system in single-user mode:
loader> boot -s
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At the following prompt, type recovery
to start the root password recovery procedure:
Enter the full pathname of the 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 Command Line Interface (CLI) prompt appears.
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Enter configuration mode in the CLI:
user@switch> configure
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Set the root password, for example:
user@switch# set system root-authentication plain-text-password
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At the following prompt, enter the new root password, for example:
New password: juniper1
Re-type the new password:
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At the second prompt, re-enter the new root password.
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If you have finished configuring the network, commit the configuration.
root@switch# commit
commit complete
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Exit configuration mode in the CLI.
root@switch# exit
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Exit operational mode in the CLI.
root@switch> exit
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At the prompt, enter y
to reboot the switch.
Reboot the system? [y/n] y