Obtain the password of ASPNET account

Question

Is there any way to obtain (not change) the password of the ASPNET account on a Windows Server 2003 server? I need to snyc my workstation's ASPNET account password with the one on the server I am trying to connect to.

I am trying to trouble shoot the following issue with my ASP.NET application.

Answer 1

Essentially No there is no way to retrieve a windows account password. You can change them with various tools but retrieval is highly unlikely.

You can always create a proxy account on a domain controller and setup an app pool to run under a proxy account so permissions can span across workstations.

Answer 2

The only way to obtain an NT service account password is to ask someone who knows. If the person who ought to know doesn't then that same person ought to be able to reset it for you. In other words you should probably talk to your network administrator.

Answer 3

There is a simple way to obtain this password. This account is auto created so its not as simple as "Asking your network administrator".

First dump the password hashes from your domain controller, most anti virus will see PWDUMP has as a virus so be sure to disable AV before you run.

Second after you dump these passwords feed them into John the Ripper (note: John the ripper is not the best program to use to do this, but it does happen to be free)

Here is a (somewhat out of date) tutorial for breaking passwords with John