CISCO – IOS Password recovery

Hmm.. so I was playing around with my Cisco router and somehow did not pay attention to my fingers. Result — I forgot the password what I have typed in :-)

Here is how to recover and get the device back to business:

PROCESS OF RECOVERY:

These pre-requisites must be met;

  1. Working serial console connection to the device, (a Cisco rollover cable is required)

Connect to the device’s console port (9600, 8, N, 1, None)

  • Reboot or power on the device
  • Enter ROM Monitor Mode (aka ROMmon) by entering a suitable Terminal Break Sequence
  • Change the Configuration Register to 0×2142 using this command: confreg 0×2142
  • Reboot – The device will boot without using it’s startup configuration and will be in it’s factory default configuration
  • Log in and enter enable (aka privileged) mode using this command: enable
  • Copy the startup config to the running config using this command: copy start run
  • Change the enable password and/or secret as appropriate using commands: enable password and/or enable secret
  • Change the Configuration Register back to 0×2102 using this command: configuration-register 0×2102
  • Save the running configuration to the start up configuration using this command: copy run start

You are good to go again :-)

Leave a Reply