need to recover slapd password and upgrade openldap

[Dan Hyatt <dhyatt@dsgmail.wustl.edu>]

My admin openLDAP 2.2 password became corrupt in the last week and I 
cannot log in as admin.
I was hoping there was an easy recovery such as lunix has  shutting down 
slapd, removing the hashed password, bringing it back up and resetting 
the blank password using slappasswd. I can't take a chance unless I know 
for sure.

I have searched Google and read the admin manual.  I inherited a system 
using open ldap server on an old redhat, and the slapd password was 
corrupted (or locked out by another admin????).

this is openldap 2.2 on an old redhat box.

I cannot risk having a group of users locked out for more than an hour 
because LDAP is down.

What I need to do today is recover (reset) the slapd password so I can 
log into the database.
I found some instructions which seem simple risky and no backout 
strategy. Simply running

http://techiezone.rottigni.net/2011/12/change-root-dn-password-on-openldap/



After recovery of root. I was planning on
1. shutting down server, making a P2V copy for a hypervisor, then 
creating another ldap master and slave servers on redhat6 with 
openldap2.4 once I have this password issue resolved.
Having the LDAP on two separate hyper visors (with local disks) to avoid 
the storage/authentication chicken/egg
Is there a better upgrade plan





I have the log files, is there a way to backout to last week without the 
admin password (which became corrupt last week).