It is important to not only choose a good and secure password, but one that you can also remember. In the event that you have forgotten the password to login to your computer account, you can follow the following steps to reset it.
If you have an encrypted home directory, you will not be able to reset a forgotten password.
If you simply want to change your password, see .
Restart your computer, and hold down the
If you have a dual-boot machine and you choose at boot time which operating system to boot into, the grub menu should appear without the need to hold down the
If you are unable to get into the Grub boot menu, and therefore cannot edit any linux kernel lines, you can use a live CD to reset your user password.
Press
Add
Press
At the
At the next
Debian systems do not have a
You will be prompted to enter a new UNIX password, and to confirm the new password.
Once the password has been successfully changed:
#
Then:
#
After you successfully login, you will not be able to access your keyring (since you don't remember the old password). This means that all your saved passwords for wireless networks, jabber accounts, etc. will no longer be accessible. You will need to delete the old keyring and start a new one.
Restart your computer, and press the
If you have a dual-boot machine and you choose at boot time which operating system to boot into, the grub menu should appear without the need to hold down the
If you are unable to get into the Grub boot menu, and therefore cannot edit any linux kernel lines, you can use a live CD to reset your user password.
Press
Add
Press
At the
At the next
Debian systems do not have a
You will be prompted to enter a new UNIX password, and to confirm the new password.
Once the password has been successfully changed:
#
Then:
#
After you successfully login, you will not be able to access your keyring (since you don't remember the old password). This means that all your saved passwords for wireless networks, jabber accounts, etc. will no longer be accessible. You will need to delete the old keyring and start a new one.
Boot the Live CD or USB.
Mount your drive.
Press
Type
Within the drive you just mounted, you can check that it is the right drive by clicking
Go to the top-level directory of the mounted drive. Then go into the
Locate the 'shadow' file and make a backup copy:
Make sure the
Right-click on the shadow file and select
Then right-click in the empty space and select
Rename the backup "shadow.bak".
Edit the original "shadow" file with a text editor.
Find your username in for which you have forgotten the password. It should look something like this (the characters after the colon will be different):
username:$1$2abCd0E or
username:$1$2abCd0E:13721a:0:99999:7:::
Replace the characters after the first colon (and before the second colon if it applies) with the hash for a blank password: U6aMy0wojraho
Save the file, exit out of everything and reboot your computer without the live CD or USB.
When you boot back into your installation, type 'about me' in the
For
After you successfully login, you will not be able to access your keyring (since you don't remember the old password). This means that all your saved passwords for wireless networks, jabber accounts, etc. will no longer be accessible. You will need to delete the old keyring and start a new one.
Go to your Home folder by typing 'home' in the
Press
Double click on the folder .gnome2
Double click on the folder called keyrings.
Delete any files you find in the keyrings folder.
Restart the computer.
After you restart and login you will be asked to enter your wireless networks password.
Instruction on what to do if the user forgets his/her password. Mention possible side-effects of changing the password.