Frameburst.net

Juniper EX Switch password recovery

A few weeks ago I’ve passed my JNCIA-EX exam, I’ve used a Juniper EX 4200 Switch  acquired as demonstration model from Juniper Networks which was very helpful for the exam preparation and eventually passing the exam. After unpacking the switch and booting up for the first time it was password protected because the switch wasn’t reset to it’s factory defaults..

This article describers the steps need to be taken to reset the Juniper EX Switch root password.

1. Power off the switch by unplugging the power cord.

2. First of all, make sure you’re physically connected to the console port of the switch. Start your terminal emulation application (eg. PuTTY) and configure the port settings as follows:
- Bits per second: 9600
- Data bits: 8
- Parity: None
- Stop bits: 8
- Flow control: None

3. Power on the switch by plugging the power cord, when the following prompt appears press the ‘Space bar’ 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…

4. At the following prompt type ‘boot –s’ to start up the system in single-user mode:

loader> boot –s

5. At the following prompt type ‘recovery’ to start the root password recovery procedure:

Enter full path name of shell or ‘recovery’ for root password recovery or RETURN for /bin/sh: recovery

6. First a series of messages describe consistency checks, mounting of filesystems and initialization and checkout of management services. Then the CLI prompt appears, enter configuration mode at the following prompt:

user@switch> cli

7. At the following prompt set the new root password:

user@switch# set system root-authentication plain-text-password

New password: P@ssword
Retype new password: P@ssword

8. After configuring the new root password commit the configuration:

root@switch# commit

9. Exit the configuration and operational mode and enter ‘y’ to reboot the system:

That’s all what needs to be done, after the reboot you can use the new root password to gain access.

Subscribe to the comments for this post