[Simh] Getting started with RSTS - unknown password

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 9, 2019, at 4:24 PM, Peter Allan <petermallan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> While I have been playing with running VMS on simulated VAXen, and RT-11 and RSX-11M(+) on simulated PDP11s for many years, I have never tried RSTS on a PDP11 - until now.
> 
> I have found installation tapes on rsts.org, but I also have a pre-built system that I downloaded in January 2018 that I was hoping to start with. I can't recall where I got it from.
> 
> The file name that I downloaded is RSTS_V10.1.zip and the contents of the zip file are:
>   RQDiskV10_1.DSK
>   rsts_1193.ini
> 
> ...
> 
> Also, does anyone know how to get into a RSTS system when you have forgotten the system password? Is this even possible? I know how to do it on VMS, but RSTS is completely new to me.

Boot the system and start the OS.  Sufficiently recent versions will prompt "Proceed with system startup?".  Answer NO.  You'll be dropped into the DCL prompt, and you're logged in as user [1,2] with all privileges.  You can now change the passwords to be whatever you want.  Use the "set password" command to change the [1,2] password, or supply the account id -- like [42,17] as the argument on that command to set some other account's password.

No, you can't read the passwords, they are hashed.

For older versions (V8 and before) the story is different.  There the passwords ARE readable.  Older versions don't have a "Proceed" prompt, they typically go right into the startup sequence without asking, after you do the "START" operation in INIT.  But it works by simulating keyboard input to the console terminal, and you can disrupt that by leaning on the control-C key during the process.  It may take a few tries.

Once you're in, RUN $MONEY and in the dialog, tell it you want passwords printed.

Curiously, those old systems don't have a password change utility, though there does exist a syscall to perform that operation.

I should add support for these things to my "FLX" utility (a tool for manipulating RSTS disk images) but right now that isn't provided.

	paul