Change user password in ubuntu
 

hi all,
I have a netbook with ubuntu installed. I lost the user password, so tried to change it in single user mode.

The problem is when I try to change the password with command (passwd user), it says the following error:

Please help what's the problem. Is there anything I am missing..

Log in.
Type "passwd".
Enter new password, confirm.

Difficult if you don't know the password :)

I just tried this, and the following worked for me:

From the grub boot menu, select "recovery mode"
Then select "Drop to root shell"

You are root (the prompt is '#' )
passwd username
Give the new password, twice.
reboot

Alex is right. Not sure, how passwd username works in rescue mode

Please explain to me how one can login if one does not know the password. What am I missing :confused:

Wim does have a point. :)

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...-password.html

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ssword-449024/

The old trick: at the grub prompt select "Edit", add single to the kernel line, press boot, change password, reboot.

In grub kernel line 'init=/bin/bash' was what I added at last, which let me to log in with root without password.

But, 'passwd username' or 'passwd' never worked for me. Same error I mentioned above.

Wim / Alex, what I meant was, when you go to the single user mode, then you just have to enter 'passwd', and not 'passwd username'. When you enter 'passwd', then it will ask for you to confirm this passwd again. And you need to reboot to reflect this change.

@falconite
I might be mistaken but in single user mode one is root and running passwd without username will therefore change the root password.