Linux – How to change the forgotten root password

linuxpasswordroot

I forgot my root password…actually I think I know what it is because it is the same password I have for pretty much everything but in the Terminal in tell me "Sorry, try again." Is there a way to reset the password? If so how?

Best Answer

At the GRUB prompt, press the letter, e, to edit.
Scroll to the kernel's boot line.
Add to the end of the kernel boot parameters this value: init=/bin/bash
Press [ENTER] and then b to boot.
Remount the root file system in read-write mode: mount -o remount,rw /
Change the password: passwd
Reboot: reboot

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Changing root password does not change sudo password

You're changing root's password. sudo wants your user's password.

To change it, try plain passwd, without arguments or running it through sudo.

Alternately, you can issue:

$ sudo passwd <your username>

Debian – MySQL root account without password

By default Debian/Ubuntu/Mint has a user with administrative accesses, namely used to shutdown MySQL, called debian-sys-maint.

Go to the file /etc/mysql/debian.cnf which has as the format:

[client]
host     = localhost
user     = debian-sys-maint
password = XXXXXXXX
socket   = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

Take from there the password, that is randomly generated when installing MySQL (e.g. it differs between servers);

And login into your MySQL with:

mysql -udebian-sys-maint -pXXXXXXXX

After that, you can change your root password.

SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('new_password');

Be aware that this changed slightly in MySQL 5.7. Have a look at How to change MySQL 'root' password using MySQL v5.7?

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Changing root password does not change sudo password

Debian – MySQL root account without password

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