Recovering From A Lost Or Forgotten Password; Password Recovery With Password Recovery Enabled - Cisco WS-C3550-12G Software Configuration Manual

Chapter 27 Troubleshooting

Recovering from a Lost or Forgotten Password

The default configuration for Catalyst 3550 switches 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.
Note On Catalyst 3550 Fast Ethernet 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 on a Catalyst 3550 Fast
Ethernet switch and password recover has been disabled, a status message shows this during the
recovery process.
Follow the steps in this procedure if you have forgotten or lost the switch password.
Step 1 Connect a terminal or PC with terminal-emulation software to the switch console port.
Step 2 Set the line speed on the emulation software to 9600 baud.
Step 3 Unplug the switch power cord.
Press the Mode button, and at the same time, reconnect the power cord to the switch.
Step 4
You can release the Mode button a second or two after the LED above port 1X turns off. Several lines
of information about the software appear with instructions, informing you if the password recovery
procedure has been disabled or not.
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•

Password Recovery with Password Recovery Enabled

If the password-recovery mechanism is enabled, this message appears:
The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the flash file system. The following
commands will initialize the flash file system, and finish loading the operating system
software:
flash_init
load_helper
boot
Step 1 Initialize the Flash file system:
switch: flash_init
78-11194-03
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 "Password Recovery with Password Recovery Enabled" section on page
follow the 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.
Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
Using Recovery Procedures
27-3, and
27-5, and follow the
27-3