The Default Login

Owned by Tracy Yang (Unlicensed)
Mar 03, 2023
3 min read

The Pica8 PicOS software operates in two modes.

L2/L3 (Layer 2/Layer 3) Mode:  This is the default PicOS mode. In this mode, the switch is used for traditional Layer 2 switching and Layer 3 routing. The OVS daemon is not running in the L2/L3 mode.

OVS (Open vSwitch) Mode:  In this mode, the switch is completely dedicated to Open vSwitch and the L2/L3 daemon is not running. 

By default PicOS has two users, root and admin.

Password for the admin account must be manually set during the first login. User should use pica8 as the password at first login. Then, the system will prompt user to change the default password. The new password is a string of 8 to 512 case-sensitive characters. The prompt admin@XorPlus:~$ appears when the password has been successfully configured.

When logging in as root, user should use sudo as the password, and the system will prompt user to enter the a secure password.

The PICOS Password Recovery process is available in the event of a forgotten password.

XorPlus login: admin
Password: (input default password "pica8")
You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
Changing password for admin.
(current) UNIX password: (input "pica8" again)
Enter new UNIX password: (input new password: the new password should be no less than eight characters)
Retype new UNIX password: (input new password again)
admin@XorPlus$
admin@XorPlus$
admin@XorPlus$cli
Synchronizing configuration...OK.
Pica8 PicOS Version 3.1.0
Welcome to PicOS L2/L3 on XorPlus
admin@XorPlus>

PICOS go2cli Version

For PICOS go2cli version, users login to the operation mode of PICOS CLI:

admin@Xorplus>

At PICOS CLI prompt, run “start shell sh” to enter Linux shell.

admin@Xorplus> start shell sh
admin@Xorplus:~$

If you want to return from the Linux shell back to the CLI prompt, run "exit".

admin@Xorplus:~$ exit
exit

admin@Xorplus>

SSH Access to the Switch

The PicOS CLI (command-line interface) can be used to assign a management IP address to the switch. The management IP address can also be configured using the Linux shell.

The following example configures the switch to obtain the management IP address from a DHCP server. Once the Switch has an IP address, it can be accessed through the SSH (Secure Shell) protocol.

admin@PicOS-OVS$sudo ifdown eth0 && sudo ifup -v eth0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.2.4
Copyright 2004-2012 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/
Listening on LPF/eth0/08:9e:01:53:78:86
Sending on   LPF/eth0/08:9e:01:53:78:86
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPRELEASE on eth0 to 172.16.0.1 port 67
Configuring interface eth0=eth0 (inet)
run-parts --verbose /etc/network/if-pre-up.d
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ethtool
dhclient -1 -v -pf /run/dhclient.eth0.pid -lf /var/lib/dhcp/dhclient.eth0.leases eth0 	
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.2.4
Copyright 2004-2012 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/
Listening on LPF/eth0/08:9e:01:53:78:86
Sending on   LPF/eth0/08:9e:01:53:78:86
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 2
DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPOFFER from 172.16.0.1
DHCPACK from 172.16.0.1
bound to 172.16.0.126 -- renewal in 70452 seconds.
run-parts --verbose /etc/network/if-up.d
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-up.d/ethtool
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-up.d/mountnfs
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-up.d/openssh-server
run-parts: executing /etc/network/if-up.d/upstart

Connection Management

Pica8 switches support three connection methods:

  • Console
  • SSH
By default, console and SSH are enabled.

Log in via console port:

The following example shows how user can connect to a switch via SSH with admin as username:

Pica8@dev:~$ ssh 192.168.50.10 -l admin
admin@192.168.50.10's password:
admin@XorPlus$


By default, root login is disabled via SSH.


The following example enables root login via SSH:

admin@XorPlus# set system services ssh root-login allow
admin@XorPlus# commit
Merging the configuration.
Commit OK.
Save done.

The root user account password is locked (non-existent). If logging in via root, user needs to reset the password.

By default, a SSH session is never terminated. However, user can set a time limit for idle sessions. In other words, if a session is idle for certain time, it will automatically be terminated. Use the set cli idle-timeout command, in L2/L3 mode, to configure the maximum time in minutes a session can stay idle before it is terminated.

XorPlus login: admin
Password:
admin@XorPlus$
admin@XorPlus$cli
Synchronizing configuration...OK.
Pica8 PicOS Version 2.6
Welcome to PicOS L2/L3 on XorPlus
admin@XorPlus> set cli idle-timeout 10
admin@XorPlus>

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