This post describes how to generate a temporary “sa” password in case the the existing password is lost or unknown.

First of all the ASE needs to be shutdown, since you don’t have the “sa” password you need to shutdown ASE by killing the dataserver.

kill -9 <PID of the dataserver>

Now go to the install directory and add -psa clause to the dataserver RUN FILE:-

cd $SYBASE/$SYBASE_ASE/install
echo "-psa" >>RUN_File

After editing the RUN_File, start the dataserver using startserver command:-

startserver -f  $SYBASE/$SYBASE_ASE/install/RUN_File

Then in the output you can see the temporary password for “sa” user:-

New SSO password for sa:mhuybduaordzp6

You can login to the ASE using this temporary password and then change the “sa” password using the sp_password procedure:-

sp_password "mhuybduaordzp6", "NewPassword", sa
go