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How To Reset Your Password In Ubuntu

There are many reasons you might want to reset a password:

* Someone gave you a computer with Ubuntu installed on it but not the password for the user account.
* You just installed Ubuntu and forgot what password you selected during the installation process.
* You have too many passwords in your life and can’t keep track of them all.

Well, this tutorial will help you reset your Ubuntu user account password, regardless of what reason you have for resetting it.

First, you have to reboot into recovery mode.

If you have a single-boot (Ubuntu is the only operating system on your computer), to get the boot menu to show, you have to hold down the Shift key during bootup.

If you have a dual-boot (Ubuntu is installed next to Windows, another Linux operating system, or Mac OS X; and you choose at boot time which operating system to boot into), the boot menu should appear without the need to hold down the Shift key.

For older versions of Ubuntu (9.04 and 8.04), you can press the Escape key during bootup in order to see the boot menu.

From the boot menu, select recovery mode, which is usually the second boot option.

After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you’ll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

The root account is the ultimate administrator and can do anything to the Ubuntu installation (including erase it), so please be careful with what commands you enter in the root terminal.

Once you’re at the root shell prompt, if you have forgotten your username as well, type

ls /home

That’s a lowercase L, by the way, not a capital i, in ls. You should then see a list of the users on your Ubuntu installation. In this case, I’m going to reset Susan Brownmiller’s password.

To reset the password, type

passwd username

where username is the username you want to reset. In this case, I want to reset Susan’s password, so I type

passwd susan

You’ll then be prompted for a new password. When you type the password you will get no visual response acknowledging your typing. Your password is still being accepted. Just type the password and hit Enter when you’re done. You’ll be prompted to retype the password. Do so and hit Enter again.

Now the password should be reset. Type

exit

to return to the recovery menu.

After you get back to the recovery menu, select resume normal boot, and use Ubuntu as you normally would—only this time, you actually know the password!

Note:
Some people get freaked out about having recovery mode logging you in as root.

Emergency Reset:
If you are in a weird situation in which your Grub boot menu timeout is 0 seconds, so you cannot select recovery mode or edit any kernel lines, you can use a live CD to reset your user password:

source : http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword

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4 Responses to “How To Reset Your Password In Ubuntu”

1. Gespeaker : A Frontend For Espeak | LINUX RADAR says:

   April 13, 2011 at 22:15 pm

   [...] Ubuntu users please follow the RepositoryUbuntuUsers instructions. [...]

   Reply
2. haile says:

   July 16, 2011 at 22:15 pm

   Thank you.
   very much.

   I tried to login directly with out password so I removed my password on the user account interface and next time when I try to login it kept on asking me for password. I left it blank and asked it to login but it didn’t, I gave it the old password and again it didn’t. So it was annoying me and I google for solution and I got yours and it worked just fine and it is quit easy. Thank you.

   haile

   Reply
3. 156 Games for Ubuntu Natty in GamePack 11.04, 5 DVDs | LINUX RADAR says:

   August 4, 2011 at 22:15 am

   [...] DVDs do not contain Ubuntu Operating System itself, [...]

   Reply
4. James J. says:

   November 22, 2012 at 22:15 pm

   i just deleted my ubuntu user account password and then i accidently locked the setting of changing the user accounts and after that i tried to do this in terminal sudo apt-add-repository “deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner”
   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install skype then it says sudo password for james: but i have no password?! and im dual booting to ubuntu with windows 7 and i dont know how to get to the ubuntu recovery mode thing D: please help! (im new to ubuntu by the way)

   Reply