Ubuntu
shadow package

Lost password

Asked by Rocky Exline

A friend just put Ubuntu 12.1 on his laptop, and he now has lost admin privledges. He does not remember putting a password in but it asks for one now. Can someone tell me how to reset the password for him?

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Rocky Exline
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

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

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Rocky Exline (raexline) said : 		#2

Tried that and it comes up, "authentication token manipulation error" password unchanged

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

You get that with a read only file system. Run:

mount -o remount,force,rw /

Then retry

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Rocky Exline (raexline) said : 		#4

No luck there either. There is a space between mount and -o and between -o and remount right? Still got the same message anyway.

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#5

Try again the same guide (from Recovery) and forget about the mount command.

First click the NETWORK option. This option will mount your drive in read-write mode , you will see the confirmation window.

Then Click ROOT and give the command to change your password

passwd <your username>

Confirm twice the new password and write something easy.

Thanks

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Rocky Exline (raexline) said : 		#6

okay I did that. Loaded quite a bit of things and ended up with "network-manager start/running, process 994"
Froze right there. Or at least went to a blinking cursor.

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Rocky Exline (raexline) said : 		#7

Thanks Nick. Took a while, but that worked.

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#8

Please mark the answer that solved your problem... for future - help - others.

Thanks