Lost password - Lubuntu

funkey_monkey

Hi,

I've soemhow managed to lose my password for login. Everytime I now login is seems to be buffering up a number of updates which it wants to install but requires password authority to begin.

How do I reset my password?


Thanks.

10-10-20

At the OS boot prompt, press ESC to bring up the grub menu.
Hit e to edit the boot line selected.
Highlight the kernel= line and press e again to edit.
At the end of the line add the word 'single'.
Press enter, then b to boot.

That will dump you into 'single user node', a shell with no GUI.

Type 'passwd' and your username to bring up the reset password dialog.
Then reboot.

That should do it.

syklops

10-10-20 wrote: »

At the OS boot prompt, press ESC to bring up the grub menu.
Hit e to edit the boot line selected.
Highlight the kernel= line and press e again to edit.
At the end of the line add the word 'single'.
Press enter, then b to boot.

That will dump you into 'single user node', a shell with no GUI.

Type 'passwd' and your username to bring up the reset password dialog.
Then reboot.

That should do it.

I tried that on Ubuntu 13.04 a while back and it didn't work.

There is however a new way taken from here

To get root do the following:
As before get into the grub menu by pressing ESC just after the BIOS screen. On the image you want to access, most likely the top one press ‘e’. Then find the line that has “ro”, meaning read only and change it to “rw” then append, without the quotes “init=/bin/bash”. Finally press F10 to boot with these settings. After a brief boot time, you should be in a root shell.

Khannie

syklops wrote: »

I tried that on Ubuntu 13.04 a while back and it didn't work.

On red hat you append "1" to go into single user mode. Anyone tried this? I'll give it a whirl on next boot if I remember.

edit: That definitely works on red hat btw. I've tested it before.

funkey_monkey

10-10-20 wrote: »

At the OS boot prompt, press ESC to bring up the grub menu.
Hit e to edit the boot line selected.
Highlight the kernel= line and press e again to edit.
At the end of the line add the word 'single'.
Press enter, then b to boot.

That will dump you into 'single user node', a shell with no GUI.

Type 'passwd' and your username to bring up the reset password dialog.
Then reboot.

That should do it.

This doens't seem to work for me - when I get to the dual boot prompt and hit 'e' to edit the Lubuntu boot the command file (is that correct terminology?) does not have the text "kernel=line". The closest I can find is 'set root ='(hd0,msdos5)'

As before get into the grub menu by pressing ESC just after the BIOS screen. On the image you want to access, most likely the top one press ‘e’. Then find the line that has “ro”, meaning read only and change it to “rw” then append, without the quotes “init=/bin/bash”. Finally press F10 to boot with these settings. After a brief boot time, you should be in a root shell.

I've tried this at a line:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-20-generic root=UUID 783d39...f8df ro quiet splash $vt_hondoff

However, it just seems to hang. Any ideas as to why?

azzeretti

You could try booting a live CD and, assuming you haven't encrypted your install, mount your installed drive in the live environment and then chroot to it. You can then change your password with passwd.

funkey_monkey

Huh?

(Sorry, I'm not sure how to go about that.)

I was told that Linux was a great OS, I'm finding it to be the opposite.

PrzemoF

funkey_monkey wrote: »

Huh?

(Sorry, I'm not sure how to go about that.)

I was told that Linux was a great OS, I'm finding it to be the opposite.

It's just me or you're blaming linux for forgotten password and the fact that there is no big red button to push it when you don't remember the password? :eek:

azzeretti gave you good and precise advice. google the bits you don't understand.

For future reference: you can set up frequency/level of automation of system updates to suit your needs, but yes, you need password to do that.

Dermot Illogical

azzeretti is talking about something like this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/reset-your-ubuntu-password-easily-from-the-live-cd/

It's a bit dated but you should get the idea from it.

It's necessary to do similar to recover a Windows system as well. Even though Windows is inferior in almost every way it doesn't do away with security to the point where you can just promise that you're the owner to regain control.

djmarkus

append init=/bin/bash to kernel boot parameters

then at the prompt:

mount -o rw,remount /

passwd <username>

sync