Recovering From A Lost Or Forgotten Password - Cisco WS-C3560-48PS-S Software Configuration Manual

Recovering from a Lost or Forgotten Password

Recovering from a Lost or Forgotten Password
The default configuration for the switch allows an end user with physical access to the switch to recover
from a lost password by interrupting the boot process during power-on and by entering a new password.
These recovery procedures require that you have physical access to the switch.
Note On these switches, a system administrator can disable some of the functionality of this feature by
allowing an end user to reset a password only by agreeing to return to the default configuration. If you
are an end user trying to reset a password when password recovery has been disabled, a status message
shows this during the recovery process.
This section describes how to recover a forgotten or lost switch password. It provides two solutions:
•
•
You enable or disable password recovery by using the service password-recovery global configuration
command. Follow the steps in this procedure if you have forgotten or lost the switch password.
Connect a terminal or PC with terminal-emulation software to the switch console port.
Step 1
Set the line speed on the emulation software to 9600 baud.
Step 2
Step 3 Power off the switch.
Step 4 Press the Mode button, and at the same time, reconnect the power cord to the switch.
You can release the Mode button a second or two after the LED above port 1 turns off. Several lines of
information about the software appear with instructions, informing you if the password recovery
procedure has been disabled or not.
•
•
Step 5 After recovering the password, reload the switch:
Switch> reload
Proceed with reload? [confirm] y
Catalyst 3560 Switch Software Configuration Guide
35-4
Procedure with Password Recovery Enabled, page 35-5
Procedure with Password Recovery Disabled, page 35-6
If you see a message that begins with this:
The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the flash file system. The
following commands will initialize the flash file system
proceed to the "Procedure with Password Recovery Enabled" section on page
steps.
If you see a message that begins with this:
The password-recovery mechanism has been triggered, but is currently disabled.
proceed to the "Procedure with Password Recovery Disabled" section on page
steps.
Chapter 35 Troubleshooting
35-5, and follow the
35-6, and follow the
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