Cisco Cisco IPS 4255 Sensor

Password recovery implementations vary according to IPS platform requirements. Password recovery is 
implemented only for the cisco administrative account and is enabled by default. The IPS administrator 
can then recover user passwords for other accounts using the CLI. The cisco user password reverts to 
cisco and must be changed after the next login.

Administrators may need to disable the password recovery feature for security reasons. 

 lists the password recovery methods according to platform.

For more information on when and how to disable password recovery, see 

.

This section describes the two ways to recover the password for appliances. It contains the following 
topics:

For 4200 series appliances, the password recovery is found in the GRUB menu, which appears during 
bootup. When the GRUB menu appears, press any key to pause the boot process. 

You must have a terminal server or direct serial connection to the appliance to use the GRUB menu to 
recover the password. 

To recover the password on appliances, follow these steps:

Reboot the appliance.

The following menu appears:

GNU GRUB version 0.94 (632K lower / 523264K upper memory)

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4200 series sensors

Stand-alone IPS appliances

GRUB prompt or ROMMON

AIP SSM

ASA 5500 series adaptive security 
appliance modules

ASA CLI command

IDSM2

Switch IPS module

Password recovery image file

AIM IPS

Router IPS modules

Bootloader command