Question

Locked out of Cisco Router - Password reset doesn't work

Cisco routers, Network security, Routers, Cisco, Password

do work for a local non-profit group. Apparently some prior network admin left under unhappy circumstances and did something to the cisco router(s) there.

We had no password access, so I went through the password recovery/reset procedure. Everything seemed to be fine except for two little details:

1) The password change had no noticeable effect
2) Even in changed startup mode, I cannot see the system configuration, although oddly enough, I CAN see the proper IP addresses ("sh ip int b" works fine).

Since this is a non-profit, they don't have a support contract, and can't really afford the $800 for a one-time support call.

Can anyone suggest how to recover from this so that we can get full control of the router back?

Howdy all,

Problem solved - although I still don't understand some of the underlying behavior...

On the suggestion of a former colleage, once the system was brought up online, I copied the configuration by TFTP to my workstation, and THERE IT WAS FULLY VISIBLE.

Once I could see the whole config, I also noted that there was no telnet (VTY) access, so I added that in.

For some reason, once telnet access was configured, the entire configuration started showing up on the console connection itself. Go figure!!

Set the enable secret password - which essentially overrides the enable password.

I can only guess that the previous admin knew of a bug in that version of the IOS which would effectively "hide" any of the configuration past the first screenful.

I just went back and noted that there is no "screen x" command (for length of page) configured - so that appears to have no bearing on things.

Bob