Before Getting Started

If this is the first time you’re performing password recovery on this device, use a web browser to go to http://www.cisco.com and do a search on PIX Firewall password recovery. One of the first documents will have a title like “Cisco PIX 500 Series Firewalls: Password Recovery and AAA Configuration Recovery Procedure.” This document contains step-by-step instructions for password recovery, plus links to utilities that are required in the process.

To perform the password recovery procedure, you must have the PIX Password Lockout Utility appropriate for the PIX software release running on the device. The web document found in the last paragraph lists the lockout utility files and should include hyperlinks to download each one. At press time, the list looked like the following. Download the utility that matches the PIX OS of the device. The files are small, under 100K each.

nppix.bin (4.3 and earlier releases) np44.bin (4.4 release) np50.bin (5.0 release) np51.bin (5.1 release) np52.bin (5.2 release) np53.bin (5.3 release) np60.bin (6.0 release) np61.bin (6.1 release) np62.bin (6.2 release)

You’ll see two other files listed with download links. The rawrite exe file is only needed for PIX units with a floppy drive, and the TFTP Server Download Utility file is needed for all other PIX units. If another TFTP server is already available, it’s unnecessary to use this one.